


broken legacies

by Crios (DreamyRequiem)



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Gen, OC centric, headcanons treated as fact, self insert-y??, sort of it counts!!!, super self indulgent, the jak/keira is rlly vague and i only put it there in case anyone was curious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-16 03:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14155953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamyRequiem/pseuds/Crios
Summary: A million and one things zoomed through her mind, but the only thing that stuck out was this: Whatever happened on this journey, it wasn't going to end well for them.At least, not at first.





	1. stormy day

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta`d

Daxter found her first, poking the unmoving form with a stick. He's not very wary because--well, she's not a lurker right? So there's no reason for her to attack them. What sweet naivety--that would die in a couple years, shriveled under the sun on heated metal.

But that's years from now and they're still now coddled in a warm blanket of safety. Jak and Daxter would stay that way for now but--Well, when that day came, none of them would be happy. So much of their world would be oh so different and utterly unrecognizable--but that is, again, in the future.

The girl is curled in on herself, Daxter's stick poking her upper arm. She didn't seem to notice it at all, content to sleep in the long green grass of Sentinel Beach's cliffside. While that wasn't safe--lurkers would kill her if she just sat out there. Never mind the fact that her fiery hair was a giant target.

It was probably as bright red as Daxter's...

But Jak woke her up, shaking her shoulder until she finally stirred. Daxter complained that she should've woke up to him poking her. She seemed confused as she dazedly looked around, peering into the shadows like she expected something to pop out of them.

Turning to the troublemaking duo, she stared at them in blank confusion and asked, "Who are you?"

Jak shrugged at her and offered to help her to her feet. She hesitated before taking his hand, letting him pull her to her feet--which were even barer than Jak’s own. Actually, she had…very little in the way of clothing. Just a thing white shirt and tan shorts.

"Where are we?" She asked and Jak suddenly realized that they hadn't answered her previous question. Not that he didn't want to but being mute made his 'wants' a little useless.

Daxter at least seemed to understand that, yes, they hadn’t yet answered any of her questions. "I'm Daxter!" He declared proudly. "And this is my best buddy, Jak. And this is Sentinel Beach--why are you out here? This place is really dangerous!"

True. Because even they tended to avoid the beach after the lurkers took over, though they did sometimes sneak in when they felt like being sneaky. Like now, for example. Which was probably a good idea, because of the girl here--

"If it's dangerous why are you here?" She shot back, raising her eyebrows at them. Jak winced: How were they gonna explain that one?

Daxter puffed, stomping his foot. "We're here because we wanted to see the sunset! But we were heading back because...uh, there's a storm coming we don't wanna get caught in."

That was also true: The dark clouds had drifted up from the west, threatening to rain on them soon enough. Which reminded Jak that they needed to get moving or they would be caught in it. Nudging Daxter with his arm the shorter boy jolted as if he had suddenly remembered that too.

"Speaking of!" Daxter declared. "We should go, before it rains on us!"

The girl frowned and opened her mouth to speak but stopped as she thought of something. She nodded and the duo shrugged at each other. Jak made a gesture forward before taking the lead.

Behind him, he could hear the girl and Daxter bickering about...something. Something to do with the grass stains on her shirt--which she apparently claimed were perfectly fine. Daxter seemed to disagree but at least it wasn't the type of arguing Daxter got into with Samos. 

And at least there wasn't any flirting.

Jack's uncle, Sigurd, spotted them first. He seemed surprised at the girl's appearance. Which...he didn't blame him for? It's not like it's every day your nephew comes home with a strange girl--who hadn't introduced herself yet, now that Jak thought about it--just before sunset and a storm.

He smiled at his uncle and Sigurd sighed, letting both the girl and Daxter inside. While his uncle wasn't too happy about Daxter, that was...mostly because of his pranks. Otherwise, as long as Daxter didn't dunk one of his journals in the sea, Sigurd was fine with the small red head.

"Now then...who are you, lass?" Sigurd turned to the girl, trying his best smile.

She eyeballed him warily, glancing at Daxter and Jak as if...seeking permission? Jak tried his own best smile to try and reassure her while Daxter gave her own thumbs up. The girl sighed and straightened. "I have," She said, "Absolutely no idea."

Eh?

Jak and Daxter exchanged surprised looks. No idea? "She probably knocked her head," Daxter said, elbowing Jak's side lightly, "Or got hit upside the head by a lurker bat..."

Sigurd seemed more concerned than the two boys did. "Are you sure, Lass?" He asked, reaching out to but a hand on her shoulder. She eyed it worriedly. "If not your name...do you remember your home? Is it Rock Village, perhaps?" Not Sandover, of course--they would know if she had lived there.

But she shook her head. "I don't know. Last thing I remember is waking up with Jak shaking me and Daxter complaining about his stick not working?"

Oh boy, she didn't remember anything before that? That wasn't good at all. Alsoo a little strange--if she had gotten hurt, why hadn't they seen any blood? She'd looked perfectly fine before...

Jak's uncle hummed in thought. "I see...well, in the morning, perhaps we could go and see the Sage. He may know a way to heal you."

"Ugh, the old stump?" Daxter groaned. "I doubt he can hel her--he can barely help himself!"

Jak winced and Sigurd shot Daxter a stern look. "Just because people help him with favors does not mean he cannot help himself. His work as a Sage in Sandover is greatly appreciated--our crops are better now than they have been in decades!"

Daxter grumbled something not kind about the old sage and the girl's lips twitched into a small smile, as if she had heard. Funny, because Sigurd certainly hadn't.

Shaking his head and moving back, Jak ducked into a trunk by their small closet, filled with blankets. He held them out and pointed outside. Sigurd followed his pointing finger and winced. "Dear me!" He cried. "A storm? I hadn't even noticed...Please bolt up the windows while I get the storm alarm going, won't you, Jak?"

With that, the old man was outside to the bell in the square. Jak placed the blankets on the floor and moved to one of the two windows, reaching up to grab the bolting mechanism. The girl followed him and said, "I want to help."

Jak glanced back at her, startled, as Daxter was already bolting the other window. He gestured at the window and her eyes followed his hands. Oh. She wanted to know how to bolt the windows? Weird, he thought, but alright. He grabbed one of her hands and pulled it up and he deftly showed her step by step how to bolt the window.

As the bolt slid into place, Sigurd slipped in behind them and sighed. "It's too late to get you off to your own hut," He said, aimed towards Daxter, "So you may stay here for the night--as can you, lass."

"Thank you." The girl smiled as Daxter grumbled. Jak reached over and patted his friend's elbow, trying to show some form of support. At least Sigurd wasn't as dismissive as Samos could be... Which was the one thing Jak didn't like about the green sage: He may be like a grandfather to him, but man was he sometimes cruel to Daxter.

Not that Samos would ever listen to him, but...well.

Jak's uncle picked up the blankets from where Jak had left them and passed them around. It was common for people living in a hut together to sleep cuddled together during a storm. It kept everyone warmer than they would be alone. Sometimes, people living on their own would bolt up their homes and go to the windmill and stay there for the night, for safety.

That being said, Jak wondered if they shouldn't have gone to the windmill too. Maybe someone would've recognized the girl--but as it stood now, that was a little too late.

Oh well, he thought, they'd just have to do that tomorrow.

* * *

The next morning was warm and sunny, despite the fierce storm that had battered Sandover all throughout the night. Jak was glad for that: It'd be easier to repair whatever damage there was in the village on a sunny day than a muggy, overcast day.

Of course, his uncle was already getting ready to take the girl up to Samos' hut when Jak and Daxter woke up. Daxter complained halfheartedly--for all that he was willing to help the girl out, he definitely didn't want to be near Samos. Not even for Jak, in this case.

Jak shot the girl an apologetic look but she waved him off as she said, "Its okay. I don't...think there's much that can be done but maybe he can help me find my home on a map or something."

Sigurd had more maps than Samos did, he wanted to point out. She could easily stay there and look--but why was he complaining about her going to get healed anyway? He wondered about that and he realized something. She...had the same feeling he always had around Daxter.

Warm, familiar, and safe. The girl was someone he felt safe and sound being with and he wondered at that: Daxter made sense, in a way, because they'd been friends for so long but once he thought about that, Jak knew he had felt like that since...practically the first time they met.

Something about them both reminded him of others that he knew he could trust, somehow. He just couldn't remember who.

(One day, far from now, after learning about his past before he came to Sandover with Samos, he'll stop and realize why they had always felt safe and warm for him. Then Jak will laugh at himself, because of the strange ironic paradox that was.

But that was years from this day.)

Jak and Daxter waved goodbye to the girl as she headed up to Samos' hut with Sigurd before Daxter suddenly cringed and raced off. It took Jak a moment to realize why: Daxter's hut, which was hidden in a small alcove off the side, hadn't been bolted during the storm.

Cringing himself, Jak raced after him and found the majority of the hut to be wet and had a fish smell. Probably from the three fish that were dead on his rug. Jak winced: They should've stopped by his hut to bolt it down before going onto his uncle's place...

"Noooo..." Daxter half wailed. "This is going to take forever to fix up!!"

Jak touched his friend's elbow again and the red head looked up. He tilted his head to the hut and made a few short gestures. It was enough as Daxter sighed in response. "Okay, big guy. I accept your help! We should...probably clean up the glass first, though, huh?"

Yeaah, no need to get glass from the broken windows stuck in their feet. Together they swept most of the glass into a corner and marked off to avoid until they cleaned up the rest of the hut. Now, for the fish.

He gave the rug a mournful look before picking it up, fish and all, and putting it outside. They could probably clean the fish and eat them later, thankfully, so there was at least one bright side to this.

Thinking about it, actually, they would probably have to take out most of the cloth stuff in the hut so it could dry, huh? Jak nodded to himself and started picking up the damp or wet cloth in the hut. Whoops, he forgot--the clothes line was probably down now. He dropped the wet clothes at the door and sought out the clothes line.

The part that had been attached to the hut had been broken off, Jak noted as he picked it up. Nodding to himself, he began setting it back into place. With that he finished putting the cloth over the line for them to dry.

Daxter started swearing and Jak ran forward, sliding to a stop at the doorway. Daxter was glowering down at his foot, which had a couple shards of glass sticking out of it. Jak sighed and walked over, eyeballing the floors so he didn't step in glass himself. Daxter looked up with a sulky pout. "We didn't get all the glass," He said.

Jak smiled and sat down next to him and gestured towards Samos' hut. "Uuugh, why." Daxter whined. "Can't we just pull them out and wrap my foot up?"

He shook his head and tried to point out that Daxter would complain for days if he didn't get his foot patched up with green eco. And it's not like Jak could carry him out to the vents in the beach anymore either. Daxter grumbled as he got the message and sighed.

"Fine!," He said dramatically, "I don't like it but whatever, might as well let the old fart fix my foot up."

Jak grinned triumphantly and then helped the older teen onto his back to carry him up to Samos' hut. Daxter muttered irritably into Jak's ear about how annoying getting hut was and how annoying it was that he had to get Samos' help for this. Jak hummed lightly in acknowledgement as they walked past the rest of the village tidying up said village.

It was outside Samos' second floor that Jak paused, listening to his uncle's voice echo from inside the study. Daxter didn't need Jak to do anything to get the message of silence across.

"Samos...It's alright, I'm sure that you've done all you can." Sigurd sounded comforting, as if trying to soothe the old sage.

Daxter snorted into Jak's ear and Jak shifted him to try and get him to quiet down. "Mister Sigurd is right." The girl's voice echoed from inside. "Besides, it doesn't really bother me, for some reason? I think I'll be fine, even if I don't remember anything."

Samos scoffed from within. "I am a sage of Green Eco, I should be able to heal even this. The fact that I have not...it is a shame on all sages of green eco."

Time to end the pity party, Jak sighed and stepped forward. He lightly kicked the door frame as a way to knock and Daxter called into the study. "Hey!! Are you done pitying yourself or are you ready to help out other people, huh?"

The sage spun, his stump shoes thumping loudly. "What do you want, brat?"

Jak frowned at him before walking in and gently letting Daxter down to the ground. He still kept his hand on his friend's ankle, trying to keep the injured foot off the ground. Samos grumbled but stepped forward to eyeball Daxter's foot. "How did you manage this?" He asked dryly.

"I was cleaning up my hut, duh!" Daxter snapped. "Can you just pull the glass out and heal it already?"

Samos rolled his eyes but proceeded to exactly that. Daxter flinched as each piece of glass was removed from his foot. Once all the glass was removed, Samos gestured for a green eco container. Jak sighed internally but gestured to the far wall. Sigurd seemed confused but, to his surprise, the girl seemed to get it as she hurried over and grabbed one of the sealed containers.

"Here." She held it out to Samos. The green sage nodded and opened up the seal and pulled out the green eco. He lifted the orbs of eco and let it soothe the cuts on Daxter's foot until the cuts sealed.

The girl watched it all with a strange fascination.

Jak looked up and gestured again. "Huh, yeah, did you get your memories back or whatever?" Daxter asked, looking up at the girl.

She smiled wryly, rubbing the back of her neck. "Um, no. I still don't remember anything. But that's fine! I think I'll be fine, now." The girl paused and then clapped her hands. "Oh right, I forgot! I thought of a name I can use for now."

"What's that?" Daxter asked with narrowed eyes.

The girl laughed. "Shiha. I--My name, right now, is Shiha."


	2. first year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d

Shiha had been in Sandover for almost two months now.

Every couple weeks, a storm would rock across the sandy beaches and grassy cliffs of Sandover. Every time, the village would bounce back like nothing had happened--but the storms were worrying. Apparently they were happening more often than they used to, a year ago. Shiha wondered if there was a reason for that--not that she could figure it out. For all she knew it was some weird eco thing.

Speaking of eco, thanks to her being assigned to Daxter's hut (as one of the two people who had brought her into the village), she soon got very acquainted with the stuff. It seemed Jak was an expert eco channeler, despite being younger than her. It was surprising anyone that age would be an expert of anything but she shrugged and took it in stride: For all she could remember that was common.

Ah well. Either way, she got a chance to watch the work green eco could do, usually. There was a blue eco vent in the jungle, but the jungle was far more dangerous than the beach. Something about it being a long time lurker territory, as opposed to the recent takeover of the beach.

Shiha was more worried about the fact that the lurkers were apparently taking over land. Would they attack Sandover and try to kill everyone inside or would they leave Sandover alone in favor of other areas?

She could only hope for the latter.

Either way, with her new vague knowledge of eco and her budding friendship with the two troublemakers of the village, Shiha was almost sure she'd be more than fine. Maybe perfect? Except...well, there was one weird thing that bothered her.

"Hey, Dax?" Shiha leaned out of the doorway towards where the older teen was gutting a couple of fish. "Can I ask you something?"

Daxter waved his fishy knife at her with a shrug. "Sure, what's up?"

"According to everyone in the village you flirt with every girl you see that's even close to your age. Why didn't you, you know, flirt with me?" Shiha narrowed her eyes.

The red head spluttered and almost cut his hand as he gabbed up at her. "Wha--What, do you want me to flirt with you?!"

Shiha flung her hands into the air, exasperated. "No! I was just wondering, you dork!" Ah yes, she thought, infamous 'dork'.

Daxter rolled his eyes. "You were--wearing practically nothing, I wasn't gonna flirt with you!! Besides you....kinda seem like you could break me like a twig so."

"Daxter," Shiha said slowly, "I'm flattered you think I could've broken you like a twig, but you know how weak I am." Sure, she had gotten stronger in the past couple of months, but those first days she had a very hard time carrying a small crate of fish let alone a large one that both Daxter and the old fisherman could carry.

He pointed a finger at her rather dramatically, in her opinion. "You're taller than Jak! And yeah I know that now, but now you're like a weird friend and I don't flirt with friends!"

She snorted into her hands. "You flirt with Keira??"

"Sheee's mostly Jak's friend, honestly." Daxter shrugged, almost sheepishly. "Keira will talk with me and she's way better than most've the others in Sandover, but..."

Oh. Shiha had never...really thought about that. She had just assumed Daxter was as close to Keira as Jak was. It didn't occur to her that wouldn't be the case. Yet, you know what? Shiha was content to know that it was because she was Daxter's friend that he didn't want to flirt.

"Alright," She said, "I believe you. Now...anything I can do to help with those fish?"

She pretended not to notice the flash of relief on the older teen's face.

* * *

The situation with Keira was...weird to say the least. She seemed happy to have another girl her age around but paradoxically unhappy that she was so close to Jak and Daxter. Mostly Daxter, at this point, in all honesty, but where Daxter was, Jak was no far behind.

At least Keira was nice about it all, instead of trying to lash out or something stupid. She might be jealous or the like of Shiha's beginning friendship with the duo but she also seemed to be content to try and be friendly with Shiha. Which, honestly, was good enough for Shiha.

A sticking point for a friendship between them was the mechanics. Keira was a builder, an engineer. Shiha could barely keep up with the girl started going on a long tangent about some small project she had started working on. Jak and Daxter seemed to both keep up better but she didn't know if that was from years of knowing her or just natural skill in mechanics.

Either way, Shiha's weak comprehension of Keira's mechanics made it hard for them to bond over anything. It didn't help, as well, that the only thing Shiha would say she had going for her at the moment was her kinda weak fishing skills.

On the brighter side, even if Shiha's attempts were failing horrible, it seemed that at least Daxter was getting closer to being true friends with Keira. Which was good! She'd rather Daxter stopped flirting with her sooner than later. Unless that didn't happen...?

Shiha had no idea. It wasn't like she could see the future or whatever, so how could she know?

It was nearly six months after Shiha had arrived, though, that Shiha really got a chance to break through the wall of friendly acquaintances with Keira. That chance was speared by that fact that Keira had disappeared into the beach and was missing: No one knew where she was.

Jak and Daxter had already teamed up and snuck out to the jungle, the latter muttering something about precursor tech. Keira's grandfather, Samos, had gotten in contact with the other sages. The villagers? Searching the village, of course.

Shiha, though? She headed into Sentinel Beach with a rotting wood staff. Maybe it wouldn't work perfectly as a defense but well. It was better than nothing, right?

The beach was as overrun by lurkers as it had been during her, Jak, Daxter's earlier sneak ins, though it seemed more of them had decided the grassy cliffs were a better place than the sandy beaches. Well, maybe except that one large lurker that hung around the old defense tower.

She still wondered what that was supposed to be for.

Regardless of that, Shiha easily spotted Keira's blue green hair on the furthest side of the beach, disappearing around a corner of the cliff side that blocked the precursor ruins over there from sight. Was...Keira running from her? Shiha was pretty sure she wasn't, but...paranoia was her friend, apparently.

Shiha puffed and jogged through the sands, the hot grains burning against her heels. It wasn't as hot as it could be, she thought as the cannon started shooting bombs at her. Wow, there it is: the actual things that made the sand burning hot to the feet.

Eh, well, she'd just have to keep moving and dodge them. Easy peasy, especially when she rode the watermill lifts up to the plateaus skirting the cliffs around the beach.

She knew this place, and not only because she had snuck here a couple of times now. It was the same place she had woken up at, with threadbare clothing and no memory, not even of a name. She was pretty sure she was still in shock from it all, if her dismissal of the situation was any sign.

Or she was disassociating. Not that she was. _Sure_ that was the case.

Being around Daxter, Jak, and the other villagers helped to ground her, though. Shiha felt far less fuzzy than when she first woke up and--Aw nuts she forgot why she had come there. Shaking her head, she rushed through the stalks of soft grass towards the sandy ruins.

It wasn't hard to spot Keia's soft blue-and-green hair bouncing around the farthest ruins, like she was searching for something. Shiha sighed and cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled. "Keiraaaaa!!"

Keira jolted and seemed to stumble in place before turning towards Shiha. For her part, Shiha had started to climb down the rock wall to land in warm sand. "What are you doing here?" Keira called back as Shiha raced across the sands.

"Looking for you!" She gasped as her knees hit the ruins, after almost tripping over the first steps. "You disappeared and your granddad started worrying about you. Why didn't you leave a note or something?"

She shook her head. "He would've stopped me from going," Keira said, "And then I wouldn't be able to find a powercell."

Shiha paused. A Powercell? Why would she need that? She repeated her internal question out loud and Keira smiled slightly. "I'm, uh, working on a zoomer. I've only just started but I need a powercell to get the engine up and running."

Letting out a soft 'huh', Shiha said, "What's a zoomer?"

Keira gave her the pinched look of someone who has been asked that question a lot. Hey, Shiha thought to herself, just because she didn't know didn't make her an idiot. She just... Her talents lay elsewhere, darn it!

Either way, Keira gave in and explained what a zoomer was as they sought a powercell. Apparently, it was a lot like a boat, except aimed more towards land travel. "Not that it can't be used over water too!" Keira assured her excitedly. "It's just that the zoomer's main function is to move across the land faster than one can walk. It'll make getting shipments to and from Rock Village a lot easier!"

Rock Village--She had heard of it, if only because of some village gossip. Apparently the precursor ring could no longer travel there, which meant the ring had been closed off on the other side. Why that was the case, no one knew.

Wait, was that also why Keira was making the zoomer?

She asked and the blue haired girl flushed. "A-ah, sort of? I mean, it's double purpose, but we can definitely check up on everyone out there at the same time! Though I am worried about the ring closing...Sages don't usually do that for no reason..."

True enough, Shiha reasoned. At least Samos didn't seem like the type to turn his ring off for anything except the direst of situations, like the end of the world or something.

"Isn't there a powercell at the top of one of these ruins?" Shiha wondered aloud. "Why don't we get that one?"

Keira sighed unhappily. "That one is weird--apparently it fades in and out of our plane of reality somehow? Granddad said it had something to do with eco interactions and quite honestly I didn't understand anything he said."

Shiha couldn't blame her on that--half of what Keira said went waaay over her head. "Then," Shiha said, "Why not that one?" She pointed to one that was floating over a small lagoon nestled between the seashore and under the ruins. If it hadn't glowed she probably wouldn't have seen it, in all honesty, but hey. She's not going to complain.

The girl besides let out a delighted shout and dove forward. She caught the powercell and strange dancing chunks of the powercell stilled and returned to their slots. Shiha peered at the item in her hands. "Is that normal?"

"Yeah," Keria said, "I'm not really sure why but we've got one."

Shiha gave her a thumbs up before pointing to Sandover. "We should probably head back before it gets dark--and your granddad really loses his marbles."

Keira snorted with laughter and the duo made their way back across the beach, careful not to draw attention from the lurkers. Finally, they returned to the village proper and all Shiha could care about was that hey, at least Keira seemed to be sort of friends with her now.

That was definitely better than it was before.

* * *

"So what is it like, doing favors for the old man?" Shiha wondered, peering over the edge of the boat at Jak.

The younger blond gave her an unamused look. Probably because of the 'old man' moniker that she had picked up form Daxter whenever he talked about Samos. Honestly though that was bound to happen: She lived with him for precursors' sake!

Eventually he shrugged and signed, ^It could be worse, I guess. He isn't...the kindest person in the world, but he knows a lot about eco. More than I do, anyway.^

"It feels like everyone knows more about Eco than I do, so I dunno how to respond to that." Shiha pointed out, sticking their sealed containers of green eco under the deck. Two small ones, in the case of injury while they were out a sea. It wasn't likely they'd need it but eh, better to have something than nothing.

Jak shrugged at her before dropping the last of the nets into the boat and jumping in. She puffed as the boat rocked and she poked his arm in retaliation. He grinned back at her before he adjusted the propeller and pushed them out to see.

It wasn't too far out into the waters, just enough for them to pick up old traps and replace them with some of the new ones. And also to drop some nets, if they say a school swim past.

Part of the reason they weren't going too far out was that there was a nasty lurker shark out in the deeper waters. The fisherman, Monik, had lost a larger propeller-less ship to the thing before and had barely escaped with his life. He'd apparently lost an arm to it too.

^That part's true.^ Jak confided as they pulled up the last of the old traps. ^I was there when Samos was healing him. He was pretty bad off...he might've died, if Samos wasn't here.^

"Is that why the village likes him so much?" Shiha asked, peering into the traps to pull out any trash she saw inside.

Jak seemed to stop and think about that for a moment before he continued to sign. ^I think that's part of it but also before he came Sandover didn't have a sage. Every other known village of the maps does now.^

Shiha hummed in thought. So prestige of having a sage and the usefulness of having someone who can save those who're badly hurt and nearing death's door...okay, so she could understand them being okay with such an ornery guy.

She wondered if green eco was that miraculous: It could save someone life and heal Daxter's foot, but it couldn't bring back her memories. And maybe she was starting to feel a little bitter about that, if only because she now felt like she must have had something contribute besides fishing, before.

They went back to the traps, both of them deep in thought. This was probably their fatal mistake--well, fatal for Shiha's poor fingers in any case. Somehow while pulling the fishing wire of one of the old traps, she managed to cut into her fingers. Shiha cursed and dropped both to the floor of the boat as her blood dripped down her fingers and off her hand.

^Are you okay?^ Jak signed moving over to her side. He inspected her hand and pulled up the green eco containers once he came to some conclusion.

Aw, man, that bad?, she thought. "They're not that bad, really!" Shiha protested.

Jak gave her a supremely unimpressed look and she faltered. Okay, fine, Shiha would let him fuss, if only to stop him from worrying about her finger later on. Well, him and Daxter too, considering she'd have to go back to the hut and he'd see the bandages...

He unsealed one of the containers and little blobs of liquid green eco floated up near the opening. Without thinking, Shiha stuck her bleeding hand near the blobs, hoping to let Jak get this over with.

What she didn't expect was for the blobs to zip into her hand and heal the cuts.

"Is that," She said, baffled, "Supposed to happen?" Jak shook his head, mutely surprised. They both stared as the rest of the green eco in the container followed suit, zipping into her hand and soothing her muscles--in fact, it seemed to soothe her entire body and she felt refreshed, like she had just woken up.

Jak eyeballed her hand before signing ^I think you're a channeler.^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just...going to write the 'important' events over the two years shiha spends in sandover. there's only so much slice of life stuff i can handle before i lay down and fall asleep.


	3. second year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d
> 
> [notices there are kudos] aah thanks for the kudos!!!

"What!" Daxter yelped. "Shiha can channel, too?!"

Shiha flailed as Jak nodded. "W-We don't know that yet!," She said, "Just because that happened with that bit of green eco doesn't mean I can channel!"

Jak and Daxter exchanged that same look of disbelief that they always did whenever someone said something that they thought was dumb. She puffed at the fact that they were making that face about something she said: It's not like it wasn't true, after all! She's seen others have green eco zip to them in the same way.

The youngest of the three suddenly nodded and signed, ^We could go to the jungle's blue ico vents--there are a couple there we could try channeling with?^

Daxter hummed in thought. "But she used green eco, right?"

^That doesn't mean she can't channel others: I can channel all of the ecos, besides dark, remember?^ Jak pointed out deftly.

"And no one can channel dark, right?" Shiha added, feeling proud she had remembered when Jak confirmed it. "But isn't it more common for people to only be able to channel one or two eco types, not four?"

Jak nodded but signed, ^That's true but it'd be better to make sure right? We can check green eco again at the vents at the beach--I have to unclog them again anyway.^

Daxter snorted at that and the red head began to shoot insults about Samos again. Jak sighed but let the older boy go on and Shiha followed his example: It's not like he was entirely wrong to be frustrated with the Sage. For some reason Samos always seemed to single Daxter out, after all.

Eventually, Daxter's tirade pattered off and they all went quiet. Jak broke the silence with a light knock. ^Maybe we should just head out to the jungle and do this? After all, the sooner we do this the sooner we can figure out how to...I don't know, do sage training?^

"Wouldn't just asking Samos for training be enough?" Shiha wondered.

Jak shook his head and glanced at Daxter. They both seemed to agree that Samos wasn't the best choice for her and Shiha sighed. "Look, I get that you don't like him Daxter, but why don't you agree, Jak? If I want to get good, don't I need formalized training?"

^If this was any other training, I'd agree. But Samos isn't really good at teaching people. I'm saying that from personal experience, okay? Samos tried training me once and it didn't go so well.^ Jak leaned back on his hands, grimly.

Shiha hesitated before nodding. "Okay. I guess we can try and figure things out if I am a channeler. So, how're we going to sneak into the jungles without someone noticing us?"

Daxter grinned first as Jak gave her a thumbs up. Oh no, that was a bad sign, she was sure of it.

And lo and behold, she was right, as they listened to the angry yakkows shrieking as they rampaged along the beach. Jak looked a little guilty but Daxter was gleeful, muttering that the old farmer had it coming. Why he had it coming, Shiha had no idea. She wondered if it had something to do with the villagers being down on Daxter but--Eh.

Jak led the way to the Jungle Bridge and the trio snuck over the shaking bridge and into the greenery. It smelled...weirdly nice, Shiha decided. Like the whole place was alive and of course it was alive. It wouldn't be so green if it wasn't.

But still, there was something about the air she liked, even if it was heavier than the salt laden air of Sandover. Probably because it had salt and a heavy humanity that only a jungle could provide.

Either way, Daxter was the one who led them down to the blue eco vent. Jak demonstrated how to channel, sticking his hand and just sort of letting it flow through him. Shiha watched seriously as she saw him crackle with the energy of the blue eco. She hesitated with her own hand before following Jak's example.

The blue eco just seemed to go around her hand, as if repelled by it.

"Oh." Shiha muttered.

Jak hummed, the blue eco fading away from his form. ^Well I've never seen _that_ happen before.^

* * *

Shiha frowned to herself, staring off into space as they made their way back to Sentinel Beach. All of them were contemplating the weird reaction the eco had to Shiha. Daxter had stuck his hand in and while he hadn't channeled it the eco hadn't straight out been repelled from his hands.

It was strange and if the green eco in the vents at the beach reacted the same then it threw that whole thing on the boat was a fluke. A weird fluke because it still didn't explain why the blue eco had been repelled by her--as far as she was aware, that just wasn't possible. And Jak seemed to agree on that, even if he didn't let them know.

Jak didn't always need to sign for them to understand what he meant.

But it did mean one thing: They were likely going to have to talk to Samos, if only to find some scraps of clues to what the heck was going on. Shiha knew Daxter was the one least looking forward to that, which was, as usual, unsurprising.

Once they arrived at the rows of green eco vents, Jak got to work pulling the rocks and the like out of the vent openings. "How does this happen all the time, anyway?" Shiha wondered out loud. "Green Eco is useful for lurkers, right, so why would they block it off?"

"I have no idea." Daxter shrugged. "All I know is that the old fart always pushes it onto Jak--I used to help him until I got a blast of green eco to the face. Which does not taste good, I'll have you know!!"

Shiha puffed a lot. Daxter imitated her and the two made a game of it, tryign to out do the other's puff. Jak won, when he heaved the last rock from a vent opening at their feet, all the air in his body puffing out in one gasp.

Daxter grumbled that he should've known but waved a hand. "Hey, Shiha! Now's your chance--go....stick your hand in the eco or something. However it works."

Jak and Shiha gave him twin unimpressed looks before the latter got up and stepped towards the vents, the collector balloons hovering over all three of their heads. She hesitated: Part of her was scared to do this, because what if the same thing happened, like with the Blue Eco?

...What if something else happened?

Taking a deep breath, she took the plunge, sticking her head into the center of the vapor-like green eco. Instead of instantly repelling away, like with the blue eco, it seemed to fade into her. It felt like the zipping blobs from the boat, last night. Well, that and the soothing of the tension in her body, like it was melting right out of her pores.

"Well, did it work?!" Daxter yelped as he hurried to her side, peering down at the pale green glow around her form. It made her look stark, her red-and-gold hair standing out even more against the green.

Jak grinned as he trailed after Daxter. ^Looks like it did.^ Jak signed. ^Congratulations. You're a channeler!^

* * *

Despite the revelation she could channel, not much changed in Shiha's life. Sure, she and Jak would mess around with green eco, see what they could do--And strangely, she seemed more adept at the green eco than Jak was. Daxter had pointed out that it might have something to do with how Jak could channel the other ecos but Shiha could only channel green eco.

That made a weird amount of sense. Regardless, they soon had a small garden around the hut, one that Shiha gleefully tended to. "I'm going to make it ten times better than anything the Sage has." She confided in Daxter, when he complained about it one day.

After that, he was fully behind growing the garden.

Beyond that, everything stayed roughly the same. They got into trouble, she helped Keira out on occasion, and had daily sleep overs with Dax. Nothing changed and yet...well. She could live without the change, for now.

Jak's birthday came and went--his 15th--and Shiha found herself helping the silent boy gather item for something he was making. Good carving wood, trading for a carving knife with the local sculptor...And then there was the bright red ribbon Jak insisted on.

Eventually, Shiha gave into her curiosity. "What is all this for?" She asked, poking the ribbon as Jak began carving.

He looked baffled by her question, as if she should know full well what he was doing it for. ^Daxter's birthday? Is in a week? I wanted to get this done earlier, but after the storm and the fisherman losing another boat to that lurker I couldn't risk it until now.^

She felt herself go still, her heart thudding in her chest. "It's. Almost Daxter's birthday?" Wait. "No!! I missed his birthday last year--dammit, what should I get him, oh noo..." Shiha was practically flailing as she leapt to her feet, peering into the shadows as if they held some sort of answer to her new problem.

Jak snagged her wrist, his eyes wide. ^Hey, calm down!^ He signed. ^Look...How about this; find something red. Daxter loves red things--its his favorite color. It's why I'm using a red ribbon.^

"Something red..." She repeated, expression grim. "Okay! I--I'm going to go look for something to do or make or something!! Don't wait up for me, Jak!"

Shiha dashed out of the hut Jak shared with his uncle, heading towards the beach. She scoured the seashores, only managing to come up with a bunch of seashells for her attempts. Daxter...might like some sort of seashell charm, maybe? But maybe she shouldn't--She had given Jak something similar and she didn't want to do the same thing twice.

Maybe as a secondary gift, then, she decided. To make up for not having a gift the year before. She hesitated to go into the jungle proper, instead skirting it's edges for something red. Unfortunately, all she found were precursor orbs, and those would do her nothing.

It was two days before Daxter's birthday that she found something. Sigurd had returned from a trip to Rock Village, which was 'still standing' as he liked to joke. There he had gotten a bunch of things that one couldn't get in Sandover--such as dyed clothes. Red dyed clothes.

Determined, Shiha haggled for some red fabric and began working on it and the seashells she had found over the previous days. It took her the remaining days before his birthday, but she finished it--All while keeping it hidden in either Keira's workshop or Jak's trunk, safe from Daxter's prying eyes.

The dawn of Daxter's birthday saw her, Jak, and Keira dragging the small yet older teenager to Sentinel Beach, towards the ruins. Shiha was delighted that Keira had decided to join them this year--only the year before, Keira and Daxter had been distant friends of sorts. Now though? Keira was talking to him and while she did ignore his flirting in favor of returning to their previous topics, it was better than the outright silence she used to bestow on him.

Slowly becoming friends, she thought. It was strange to her, though, that she became friends so quickly with the red haired boy. Why had she bonded with Daxter so quickly while those has had known for most of his life didn't? She wondered if that was exactly why she had been able to bond with him, as opposed to everyone besides Jak.

Ah well, she thought as she brought her present closer, so long as he was happy with them what did she care? If she can make her friends happy, then why did it matter why they were friends?

Jak offered his gift first, a small brown package. Daxter happily tore open the package and laughed at the sight of a tiny flut flut sitting in his hand, a red ribbon tied around its throat. "Nice!" Daxter cried. "Thanks for this, Jak. My favorite animal _and_ color? I definitely know where I'm going to put this!"

^I'm glad you like it.^ Jak smiled delightedly. ^It took a while to pick out a ribbon. Keira, what about you?^

Shiha leaned over to peer at the checkered package in Keira's hands. Keira flushed and leaned away, clearly confused. "What? What's wrong?" Keira muttered, her hands tightening on the package. "I--Oh, this is my gift for you, Daxter."

Daxter stared at the package in her hands before reaching forward and picking it up. He slowly opened it, almost expecting it to be a prank. Instead, it was a little communicator, not all that different than the one she had given to Jak. "It's a companion communicator with Jak's." Keira confessed. "That blue button will connect you to Jak's communicator while the red button will connect you to me. Do you--like it?"

The red head laughed lightly. "Uh, yeah! Thanks Keira." Something about Daxter's response made Shiha think he was sincere. But with both of these gifts, could hers hold up? Shiha crossed her fingers on it, but...Well, she wasn't holding her breath on it.

^Shiha, you're next.^ Jak patted her elbow before leaning back. Shiha grinned at him before she held her own package forward. Daxter raised his eyebrows before taking the package. Oh dear, Shiha thought, did he sense her worry?

The package was pulled open and Daxter stared down at the red scarf in his hands. "A scarf?" He sounded surprised.

"I know that we live out here in a tropical paradise, but I just thought about something you could use that was your favorite color and I thought. Well, why not a scarf?" Shiha ducked her head in embarrassment.

Daxter laughed. His laugh wasn't pretty--but then it never was. Shiha flushed but she knew that Daxter wasn't trying to be mean. "I love it, Shiha. I--Wait, what's this?" He picked up the corner of the scarf, where several seashells had been sown into the scarf fabric. It was shaped like a star, just like the charm she had given to Jak.

She flushed. "Well. I was thinking about making a shell charm but because I already did it for Jak, I thought I'd do something sort of similar?" Daxter grinned and wrapped up both his other gifts in the scarf and cheerfully laid it down in his lap.

"So!" He began. "Is that or do we have something else to do?"

Keira gave him a thumbs up. "I've got a cake at home. Let's head back to your hut and I'll go get it so we can keep celebrating." Daxter grinned at him and the rest of them agreed on this. Keira went on ahead of the three and Shiha watched her go.

Daxter paused and then turned to Shiha and Jak. "Let it be known now, that I like your two's gifts the best!" And then he rushed off. Jak yelped and hurried after Daxter, clearly intending to make sure the older teen didn't run right into a couple of lurkers.

Shiha watched them go and then started, realizing that whoops, maybe she should be following? She puffed and hurried after, ignoring the itch from the sand grains that got stuck in between her toes and against the soles of her feet.

Daxter had already unloaded the scarf in the hut when she caught up. The wooden flut flut carving had been placed on the stand by his bed and the communicator down next to it. He'd...hopefully keep it with him, whenever he left the hut on his own. And the scarf? He proudly drapped it over his shoulders.

"You seem happy." Shiha smiled at him.

He shrugged. "Eh. It's just been an exciting day, is all. Keira should be here soon right?"

^He's happy we're celebrating his birthday.^ Jak signed as Daxter squawked and protested Jak 'revealing his deep dark secret'. ^He doesn't get to celebrate it a lot, so this is nice. You know?^

Shiha nodded. "Understandable."

Daxter jabbed a finger at them. "Hey, that's not--Stop teasing me darn it!"

Before Daxter could really retaliate Jak and Shiha's teasing, Keira popped into the hut, holding the cake she and Shiha had baked together. Jak had tried to help but--well, let's just say do not let that kid near any frosting.

"Alright!" Keira declared as she raised the cake. "Let's dig in, okay?"


	4. foggy geyser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d
> 
> sigurd is jak's uncle, bjorn is the fisherman.

"Pffffft." Daxter and Jak were making faces at each other as Shiha finished unloading the almost all empty fish traps onto the dock. She rolled her eyes: Why were all the teenage boys she ran into dumb like that? Jak and Daxter were just lucky she liked them in particular.

Shiha rolled her eyes and knocked her knuckles on the duo's heads. "Hey, you two. I know we mess around a lot, but I'd rather we didn't get into any trouble because of you two making faces."

Daxter dramatically waved a finger in her face. "Who cares what fishbreath wants, Shiha! That guy keeps giving me almost rotten fish, whenever I try to pick up the groceries!"

She poked him on the forehead. "And that's why I go with you when we get groceries, now. They never dare to give you the bad food stuffs when I'm there, too." Which was…true. After Shiha had started living with Daxter and found the horrid state of his food, she had all but insisted on going with him to the marketplace. Which was how she even find out about they shafting Daxter of good food he had every right to buy.

Melodrama seemed to pour off of Daxter as he waved his hands around. "They shouldn't be shafting me in the first place!" Jak knowingly ducked under one of his waving arms as Daxter continued his speech. "Besides, even if we are messing around, how would they ever know? It’s not like they have one of those fancy cameras Keira goes on about on us or whatever."

His elbow hit the startup lever for the propeller. Yelping, Shiha crumbled to the bottom of the boat and Jak fell back, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. At what, Shiha had no idea but she was definitely going to get back at him. Er, if he was laughing at her of course. Which he probably was, but still she was goign to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Shouldn't we turn it off?" She pointed out dryly as Daxter flailed. Jak shrugged, clearly not all that annoyed by the prospect of a strange little adventure. She rolled her eyes at him and turned to the propeller. If they went out too far, they might use up all the power in the engine--

The boat rocked as it hit the shore of an island--a foggy island. "Uuuuh." Daxter peered over the edge of the boat, at the shady shore. "Isn't this that Misty Island the old stump goes on about us not going near?"

Shiha frowned. "The what island?"

^It's this island that's supposedly the lurkers’ main base around here.^ Jak signed as he kicked out of the boat and walked up the shore. ^It's called Misty Island--because of all the mist, see? But I bet this whole place is deserted: Why would they have a base so far out?^

Daxter groaned as he placed his hands on his face but didn't argue that point. Shiha shrugged and followed after Jak, helping the shortest of the trio out as well. Once Daxter was on dry land, she took a moment to survey their surroundings.

Gray, gray, and more gray was the first thing she thought. Everywhere else she had been had been colorful and full of life: Misty Island seemed devoid of both. The few trees she could see were broken and hollow, their leaves long gone. The broken skeleton of some sort of beast laid out above them, like some great dead beast that still watched them.

That thought made her shiver: It can't watch her, right? After all, it was dead. The dead cannot watch the living, no matter how much people wish for it.

But she found herself ignoring the imagined eyes, trailing after Jak and Daxter as the duo led them up to a strange precursor door. There, a gathering of lurkers seemed to lie in wait for something--or someone.

"This. Doesn't look good." She muttered to Jak. The blond shrugged and pressed a finger to his mouth. Shiha got the message but she still thought this wasn't good. Why were they gathered like this.

Daxter snorted lightly. "We're doomed aren't we." Jak put another finger to his mouth as The trio leaned against the rocky outcropping they peered over.

And then there was crackle of eco and two people arrived, floating as Samos did when he was manipulating green ecos in the air. Who the heck are they, Shiha wondered, and why were they standing before the lurkers as if they commanded them?

"Continue to gather dark eco, as before." The male(?) of the two commanded.

The other, a women from the looks of her, continued the speech. "And if any of the villagers leave the village, you will know what to do."

That...sounded ominous. Shiha clasped a hand to her chest. Did that mean they wanted to see them dead? If anyone left--Would the lurkers kill them? Because that was definitely the vibe she was getting from the woman's cold smile and command.

Jak slid back down the outcropping and snuck away from the gathering. Shiha and Daxter exchanged looks behind his back before sliding down and follow him towards the opposite end of the island. Or, she thought that was the direction they were headed in. The mist of the island made it very hard to tell which way was which. She...really hoped they didn't lose the way back to the boat.

Jumping across the platforms, they eventually found themselves at another precursor door. She tapped the the door with her fist lightly, her fist barely making any reverberations on the orange-gold metal. A zip buzz arched over her head and she pulled her hand back as the door swirled open. She gave Jak a dry look as the rest of the blue eco charge he held dispelled. He grinned back at her, unrepentant.

"Jeez, what is all this?" Daxter grumbled as he passed Shiha into the arena-like metal clearing. There was no ceiling, the stars sparkling through the mist down at them. Shiha suspiciously squinted back before surveying the area: Nothing of note, besides those weird steel boxes. They seemed to be everywhere, these days. Were they a lurker thing, maybe?

She turned her head at the sound of a stomping foot. Jak stood by some floating platforms, gesturing for the two of them to follow him. Daxter dramatically bowed and said, "Ladies first!"

Rolling her eyes as she walked forward, she said, "Age before beauty." Daxter squawked indignantly and jogged to keep up with her as she followed Jak to the upper platform. She stopped as she heard a crackling sound--eco, somewhere. But she didn't see a vent...?

A thump echoed behind her and Jak and the two turned to see Daxter flat on his face. He grumbled as he got up, picking the strange metal...thing with both of his hands. "Why is there always all this precursor crap lying around anyway?" Daxter demanded. "Green stump always goes on about how this stuff is rare and precious but it's like. Everywhere. And he goes on about where it come from, blah blah blah--"

He tossed it to Shiha, who decided to fiddle with it. Maybe it was a container of some sort? She struggled to open it but sighed as nothing come of it. "Here." she tossed it to Jak as Daxter continued to rant about 'stupid precursor crap' besides them. "You take it."

Jak shrugged and took it from her. Almost instantly it whirled to life and Shiha grumbled: Of course Jak figured out how to make it work. "Woah!" Daxter slipped into the circle, staring at the softly glowing item. "How the heck did you do that?"

^Don't know.^ Jak grinned lightly when Shiha spied something out of the corner of her eyes.

She reached over and grabbed Daxter's shoulder. "Guys. I think we should run."

"What, why?" Daxter turned and spotted the same thing she had--a Lurker, cradling what seemed to be a club made of bone. He cried out, grabbing the back of Jak's blue tunic. "Jak! Do--I dunno, do something!"

Jak's response was to throw the precursor item at the lurker. Shiha wished he hadn't--the explosion knocked him off his feet and in turn right into Daxter.

Daxter went flying back, dragging Shiha with him for a few paces before her grip loosened. He fell--right into the dark ooze of eco. The 'plop' echoed in her ears as her hand dangled out over the pool. The sparks of eco burned her hand but she--didn't care. Daxter just fell in and he wasn't coming up and Jak was beginning to freak out beside her and she couldn't blame him.

She was starting to freak out too.

And then something small, orange, and screaming zapped right back out of the eco. Shiha cried out and rolled away from the pool, cradling her slightly burned hand to her chest. The small orange thing was also cradling its head, groaning. What, what? Shiha had absolutely no idea what the heck was going on anymore.

"That stung!" The orange thing spoke with Daxter's voice. "Jak, seriously?! You could've done anything other than explosions you know--What?! Why are you both staring at me?!

Shiha gulped because not only did it speak in Daxter's voice--it also had his goggle hat and the scarf she had made for him a month ago for his birthday. Jak made a vague gesture at Daxter(?)'s entire body and the furry orange looked down at himself.

He screamed. Shiha screamed too.

"Okay, okay!" Daxter yelped, clearly trying to calm himself down. "I'm--I'm okay. This is fine..." He made the mistake of looking down and saw his brand new tail. He started screaming again, clutching at Jak's tunic collar.

Shiha on the other hand leaned back and covered her face with her uninjured arm. "Samos and Bjorn are going to kill us all."

* * *

Getting back to the boat while they were mildly panicking had been a trip an a half--mostly because they also spent that time trying not to run into any more lurkers. They'd already managed to get Daxter turned into a precursor damned animal, they weren't going to risk something even worse happening.

Like one of them dying.

Shiha was also a bit preoccupied by the thoughts of Samos the Sage and Bjorn, the fisherman both she and Jak worked for, murdering them in their sleep. Once they found out they'd used the boat to go to Misty Island, they were sure to be banned for life. Shiha grimaced: If they got banned, how else were they going to buy food?

Then again, there was also the issue of how to get Daxter back to normal. How were they supposed to help him when they didn't even know how he had gotten turned into an animal in the first place? Sure, they knew he fell into that weird eco--Shiha was sure it was a type of eco, just not one she had seen before--but that told them absolutely nothing of the how and why.

Once they actually got back to the boat, they'd all calmed down enough that none of them were going to have a panic any time soon. At least, not until Jak and Daxter caught onto Shiha's muttering about Samos.

Jak had reasoned that Samos might be able to fix Daxter--Which, well, maybe. Hopefully. But Shiha wasn't holding her breath--if he even could, would he? Shiha would've hoped so but Samos was very....derogatory towards Daxter, the few times she had seen them in the same room. At least Daxter gave as good as he got. Not that he should've even had to 'give as good as he got' in the first place, but he'd probably rankle if he knew she was fussing about that.

Regardless, now that they were standing just outside the door to Samos' study, Shiha was second guessing herself on agreeing with Jak's suggestion. Jak seemed to be doing the same and Daxter ended up being the one to throw caution to the wind as he stepped into the door way.

Samos reacted instantly. "What have you three done this time?!" He demanded, sounding furiously annoyed. Yowch, you'd think they'd stepped on his toes.

Daxter started babbling from his spot at Jak's feet, clearly trying to quickly explain what the heck happened on Misty Island. Jak just punched the bridge of his nose, knowing that Samos wouldn't listen to him--he couldn't even understand him, like most of the other adults in the village. Shiha shot him a pained but understanding smile before she put her hands on her hips. "Samos," She said over Daxter's yelping, "We went to Misty Island."

"Obviously!" He barked, gesturing down at Daxter. "Considering he's like this--What in the Precursors' names were you doing there and taking a bath in dark eco for?!"

Dark Eco. Shiha filed that way for later examination: no one had ever mentioned it before, to her or Daxter. She wondered if Daxter even knew about it before now either.

"I wasn't _taking a bath_ , I fell in!" Daxter snapped as he clambered up to Jak's shoulder, ready to shout in Samos' face some more. "But if you know what the heck did this to me, then fix it!"

Samos scoffed. "I would--if I could! I am not a sage of Dark Eco, fool boy, but of green. Only Gol would be able to help you now."

Jak frowned. ^Who's Gol?^ He wondered tilting his head to both Daxter and Shiha. Shiha shrugged--She had definitely never heard the name before.

Meanwhile Daxter was snorting. "Then let's go get him??"

"Again, I would if I could--but all the other teleportation rings have been shut down _and_ Gol is incredibly far to the north. To get there, you would have to travel on foot." Samos shook his cane at them, clearly frustrated with them. "And I doubt that will be happening soon."

"Unless," Keira's voice said behind them, "They had a zoomer to halve the time to get there. Hi guys, causing some chaos again?"

Jak waved weakly as Daxter hpmhed and crossed his arms. "We went to visit Misty Island! I don't know what the big deal is." Shiha smiled cheerfully, trying to cover up any of the weariness she still felt from the accidental visit.

Keira shook her head, exasperated before she stepped forward into the semi circle they had made. "Shiha, you three get into more trouble than the rest of the village kids combined. But like I was saying--I've been working on a zoomer. I'd gladly offer it to help Jak and Daxter out. It...only seats one, though." She shot Shiha and apologetic look: The original plan had been for Shiha to test it out, when they had ten power cells to power the core fully.

Shiha shrugged back at her. Even if she wasn't going to get to be the person to test it out, at least they'll be able to get somewhere with finding that Gol guy. "You still need some more powercells, for a heat shield, if we're going to us the short cut."

There was a canyon, filled with lava and magma, that led to Rock Village. It had been a longstanding plan of Keira's to use the canyon as a shortcut to Rock Village, to shorten dilvery time between the two towns. But with their leisurely searches for powercells, they had never found enough to power the heat shield needed for it.

Well, now they could put Jak to work. Well, Jak to work with Shiha: There was no way Shiha was letting them go without her.

By the portal, Samos grumbled. "Fine. I suppose once you get there you can check on the blue sage and ensure he is alright--and repower that transportation ring up." He stomped the butt of his cane staff on the floor. "But first! You three are going to Geyser Rock to train. I will not allow you to go otherwise, as the lurkers are far too dangerous to fight with without some skill."

Shiha felt herself grimace against her will: She was not a fighter, for all of her of her sneaking adventures with the two boys. But if she had to learn to fight? Well, she supposed she'd just have to try and be quick on the uptake.

Jak had nodded and he and Daxter vanished through the portal, no doubt heading to Geyser Rock. Shiha puffed and made to follow but Samos' staff lowered to stop her. "Where do you think you're going?" He demanded.

"Following my friends?" She snapped, frustrated. Was he seriously going to stop her here?

Samos shook his head. "I know for a fact that you don't know anything about fighting!! You'll stay here, out of the way!"

Fury rose up, like a viper readying to strike. "Excuse me?! How would you know? You haven't spoke with me since the day Sigurd brought me here to check up on my head, for my memories!" Shiha kicked the wall, ripping a long rod of a precursor metal from the same wall. "You'll stop me from helping my friends, when I'm dead!"

She spun around and leapt towards the ring just as Keira yelled her name. If she said anything else, Shiha didn't know, as she materialized on Geyser Rock, still clutching the precursor rod with both of her hands. Jak and Daxter waited for her right by the ring. Daxter grinned and leapt from Jak's shoulder and onto hers, cackling.

"Nice of you to catch up, Shiha!" He grinned. "What took you so long?"

Shiha puffed. "One word: Samos."

Jak looked startled, eyeballing her with a concerned frown. ^What did he do?^ He stepped closer and then paused to look down at the rod she held. ^And isn't that the rod from Samos' wall?^

"Basically? He called me useless and told me to stay out of the way. Heck to that!" She offered her hand for Daxter to high five, which he did with great delight. "Besides, how am I going to learn to fight if I don't train first?"

Before Jak could respond, the communicator Keira had given him earlier that year buzzed to life. "Where is that damn girl?!" Samos' voice barked over the communicator. Shiha instinctively scowled at the sage's voice and shared an irritated look with Daxter.

A scuffle broke out over the communicator before Keira's voice cut through the tense silence. "Sorry, guys. Well--if you need help or tips about Geyser Rock, let me know and I'll figure something out, okay?" The communicator shut off and the trio exchanged looks.

"Sounds like Samos is pretty pissed with you," Daxter said gleefully, "You‘ve got my full support."

Jak gave him an aghast look. ^Daxter! I know you two really don't like him, but he's still pretty important in the village.^ Ah, fretful heroic Jak--he had perhaps a little too much faith in Samos.

"Respect is earned, not given." Shiha told him seriously. "Now if he actually sticks with helping us get to Gol for Daxter, I might start being a little nicer."

That seemed to mollify Jak enough for his taste. Daxter snorted into her ear and muttered, "Samos won't get any from me." After, he leapt back over to Jak's shoulders, balancing better on the boy's shoulder plate.

She curled her hands around the rod and thought about it. It was made of precursor metal, which meant it was practically impossible to break unless she tried to bang it on other precursor metal. Considering what they were planning to do...well, she was sure she'd be fine tagging along, if she could fight with this rod.

Either way, she found herself trekking into the wilds of the small island, occasionally smacking a weird dummy thing set up all over the island. "It's weird." She eventually complained to the duo. "Why is there all this stuff?? It's like he planned this all out, before we even knew we'd be here."

"The stump is weird like that." Daxter confessed. "He always seemed to know everything that was going on--well except for recently."

Shiha frowned as she pried open a box. "What do you mean?" She asked as she patted the scoutfly she freed from within the red lurker box. How did these even get there...?

^Samos always seemed to just know things, when we were growing up.^ Jak shrugged as he smashed a box with his bare hands. Shiha stared at him jealously. ^Like he always knew me and Dax would be friends--but for some reason, a couple years ago, it was like he stopped being able to see stuff clearly like he used to.^

The whole thing sounded strange, to her. Being able to tell the future? Green eco didn't seem like something that could grant future vision or something of the like. That seemed more likely to be...well, maybe blue eco? Lots of precursor tech seemed to run off it, so maybe that was more tied to the future?

...Okay, that didn't make much sense either. But her point still stood!

Wait.

"A couple years ago? Like...two?" She asked, trying ro clarify.

Daxter peered back at her, almost bemused by her question. "Isn't that what a couple always means?"

She gave him a sulky stare. "I'm asking because about two years ago, you two found me at Sentinel Beach, remember?" Shiha crossed her arms, her rod still clutched in one hand.

That seemed to give them pause. ^That's...true.^ Jak admitted as he pried a powercell from the last scoutfly. ^But why when you showed up? That makes no sense.^

Shiha could agree to that: It seemed strange that he'd suddenly lose that foresight when she showed up. Yet...if Samos set this up, maybe that was just coincidence? She shrugged and the trio decided to move on to bigger and more important things. Like finishing this 'training' so they could actually start working on helping Daxter.

Eventually they came across yet another blue eco door and she gave it a dark look. She still remembered the scare Jak had given her with the last door they'd come across. There was no way she was going to forgive him for that!

Of course, as she stood there glaring, Jak had wandered off towards the blue eco vent with Daxter and charged up. And, yet again, managed to scare her by coming back and causing the swirled door to zip open. Shiha glowered at him. "Why do you do this?"

Jak and Daxter gave her equally teasing grins.

A small pound leaked to the ocean lay on the other side and Jak led the way through the floating platforms. Above them, precursor towers rose above them, though some of them were tilted to one side or the other, as the world shifted around them. Jak helped Shiha climb up the way towards the peak of the small mountain top. Once they reached the top, a single powercell awaited them and the communicator buzzed back to life.

"The powercell granddad put there got picked up, right?" Keira's voice sounded through the buzz. "Which means you can all head back now! I got granddad to put the ring back online, so head on back!"

Shiha studiously avoided looking over the edge as the communicator went silent. Jak snagged the free floating blob of blue eco and charged the platform down. He held out a hand to Shiha and paused when he saw her staring at the sky, her back to the edge.

Daxter spoke up. "Shiha...are you scared of heights?"

"No!" She snapped loudly, her heart thumping in her throat. Okay, so she was scared, but she wasn't going to admit to Daxter that she was scared. That would doomed her forever. "I just. Don't like high places."

"That means you're scared!" Daxter blurted, leaping to her shoulder to peer into her face. "Aw, come on, it'll be quick!"

Shiha scowled. "No it won't, these blue eco platforms always take forever...!"

Jak grabbed her hand and pulled her and Daxter toward him, taking care to leap onto the blue eco platform as it rose back up to them. Daxter clung to both of them as Shiha screeched on the top of her legs. Jak's only response to the scream was to wince and tighten his grip on Shiha.

Once they were on solid ground again, Jak let go and she crumbled to the ground. She felt almost as shaken as she did when Daxter had fallen into the dark eco. She...really, really hated heights. And those stupid blue eco platforms, too!

Daxter warily patted her elbow, as if to comfort her. She just groaned in response, burying her face against her knees. They all stood like that for a couple minutes before Shiha stood up and turned around to retrieve her rod--which she had apparently dropped without noticing. Then again, it's not surprising what types of things people do when they panic.

After she retrieved her rod, Shiha spun around and smacked the back of Jak's legs with it. "Jerk!" She declared. "Don't scare people like that, damn it!"

Jak groaned as he knelt, rubbing the back of his knees. Daxter snickered at him, up until the point where she tugged on his ear in revenge for laughing and letting Jak just grab her like he had.

"Okay, okay! Everyone done?" Daxter demanded. Shiha puffed and Jak gave him a weak thumbs up. Puffing, Daxter said, "Then let's head back before old green stuff decides to start bothering us again."

The trio glanced at each other before Daxter took his place on Jak's shoulder. Those two leapt into the ring and, after a beat, Shiha followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ages  
> 17: Daxter  
> 16: Shiha, Keira  
> 15: Jak


	5. muddled jungle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d
> 
> i'm not fond of the jungle, for writing wise.

"Girl, you are not going with them." Samos glowered up at Shiha.

She scowled at the Green Sage. Ever since they had returned from Geyser Rock, he had been digging into Shiha like no tomorrow. Whether it was because she had basically yelled at him or because she had stolen the precursor rod and gone after Jak and Daxter, she had no idea. Either way she was starting to get sick of it, especially when he started telling her that she wasn't allowed to go with Jak and Daxter.

Straightening, Shiha said, "You're not in charge of me. In fact, Bjorn is probably the only one who is actually in charge of me! And he wouldn't stop me so, nweh!"

The Green Sage's expression twisted in fury as Shiha stuck out her tongue and rushed away, still carrying the stolen precursor rod. "Shiha...!" He yelled after Shiha's retreating back. She grinned to herself before rushing down towards the beach, where Jak and Daxter sat together, waiting for her.

Daxter rolled his eyes. "Was the old green keeping you?"

Shiha kicked the sand. "Yeah, he was trying to intimidate me into not coming--even tried to play the 'I'm older than you so you should listen' card." She and Daxter exchanged twin looks of frustration: Samos always tried to pull that card on Daxter, so it was a first for Shiha. Shiha was unsurprised by her frustration with it, though.

^Still, Samos has done a lot for everyone?^ Jak signed, looking sad. Shiha sighed but didn't reply. It was understandable why Jak still tried to defend Samos--according to Daxter, the man had been the one who had found and brought Jak to Sandover, as his parents were presumed to have been killed when he was younger/

Deciding to change the subject, Shiha said, "So, where's our first destination? Sentinel Beach, the Forbidden Jungle?" She grinned at the thought of going to the latter: She'd never been, as of now, so it'd be nice to finally say she'd explored the place.

Jak perked up before signing, ^Forbidden Jungle, actually. There's a covered vent at the beach, and Keira thinks there might be a powercell on the tower that we can get to once we open it.^

"Okay..." Shiha tilted her head, feeling her confusion mount. "But why the jungle, then?"

The ottsel (or so Samos claimed that's what he was) leapt from Jak's shoulder to hers. "Apparently the way to open the blue eco vents is in the jungle!," Daxter said, "So we gotta go there to take care of it, right Jak?"

As it turned out, what she had always assumed to be a cave was actually just a tunnel through the rock and into another area--the place just before the jungle proper. She peered up the wall of rocks and the strange path up the top of the wall. A waterfall crashed into water somewhere just outside of her sight.

Shiha sighed as Jak helped her climb up the path yet again. "I really do need to learn how to climb as fast as you, Jak." Jak shot her a wry smile and didn't respond. Haha Jak, she thought, Thanks for the tease.

Hesitantly, she crossed the wooden bridge after Jak and Daxter. She could smell the greenery as she stepped into the jungle proper. It wasn't as colorful as she expected--Mostly green and browns. Strangely, she had expected there to be purple and red flowers, decorating the jungle or the canopy. Maybe even some blues--besides the rivers of water.

And then a lurker snake fell from the canopy and she shrieked.

She swung her rod hysterically at the snake until she knocked it unconscious, its long body fell from the trees and curled up. Jak put his hand on her shoulder and she started, almost smacking him with her rod. She took a deep breath and hissed. "Don't do that, Jak! You...scared me."

"Like those lurker snakes did?" Daxter deadpanned.

Shiha glowered. "Snakes are creepy and scary and should not exist, leave me alone!" She crossed her arms and turned her back on Daxter, giving the jungle a dark look. Now she kinda wished she had suggested that they split up: She hated snakes and if there were snakes around here? Ha, she was going to die.

Jak patted her shoulder and stepped up next to her with a wry smile. ^Don't like snakes, huh? Good to know.^ Shiha sighed and Daxter patted her shoulder from where he had balanced on Jak's arm.

Guess Daxter had become a lot more dexterous since he had become an ottsel.

"Fine, let's keep going." She sighed. "Hopefully there aren't any more snakes..."

There were. Two, actually, but after Shiha savagely knocked them outside as she had the first, the other lurker snakes seemed to have gotten the message: Don't screw with Shiha. Jak and Daxter handled the ape like lurkers that hung around the paths they needed to traverse. Along the way, they spotted some strange worm things sticking out of the earth.

Trying to play it safe, Shiha poked one of the worm things. It responded by trying to gut her with some spokes that jutted out. "What the--!" She jumped back, almost stomping on Jak's feet in the process. "Those things are murderous!"

"Let's not touch them again." Daxter grumbled.

They _did_ start finding scoutfly boxes near the paths. Shiha gleefully broke them, glad to having something she could break without consequence. "No powercell on this one!" Daxter cried as they released it. Ah, well, they had two more to go anyway. Where ever they may be.

Eventually, they come across a strange machine. A blue eco beam was being directed into it, and it seemed like it was using the blue eco to power something. Either it was that or they were harvesting the blue eco for something. She exchanged looks with Jak before the trio clambered across the machine to knock the mirror redirecting the beam.

As it shattered around their feet, the beam now hit the tall oak pole just pass the lurker machine. Squinting in the opposite direction, Shiha spotted a small blue eco powered door hidden against the large precursor temple. She grinned. "Hey, Jak, Dax! I think I found the entrance to the temple--or a back door! You'll need blue eco, though..."

Oh, nuts. Where were they going to get that, now? They could've used the beam but... Jak tugged on her sash before pointing down and around the cliffside, where a blue eco vent sat, the eco drifting up into the air unused. "Think you can make it from there back here?" She asked.

"Heck yeah, we can!" Daxter fist pumped. "Just you wait, we'll be right back!"

Shiha watched them go before turning her gaze on the oak pole. The beam was hitting it but not going anywhere...Hm. She should probably do something while they were gone and fiddling with the pole seemed like a good idea. Wriggling off the machine, Shiha grasped onto the weird goggle things attached to the pole and peered through them. She could see the entire jungle through them...

...Oh! OHHH, these were supposed to be adjustment goggles--or well, used to help with adjusting the glass at the top of the pole. Grinning, she began adjusting the glass until the beam was being fired towards the pole in the deeper part of the jungle. Maybe she could do that after Jak and Daxter get back...

Speaking of, jsut as she thought that, Jak and Daxter zipped past her, the former crackling with blue eco. Shiha jogged after him and just barely caught the door open when the duo skidded into it. "You got it!" She yelled over to them.

"Yeah, but this ain't no backdoor!" Daxter yelled back.

What? Confused, Shiha ran up the ram and paused at the door. Jak was putting away what looked like a powercell and Shiha found herself slumping over as she really looked at the room. Because that was all it was: A single room, tucked up against the temple. "Are you serious..." Shiha grumbled.

Jak gave her a wry smile. ^We did find something that might be the way to the entrance, though.^ He grabbed her hand and pulled her back to the cliffside, where the rocky outcropping lead down to a patch of land. ^There,^ He signed and pointed to some blue eco symbols. ^We didn't activate it, but those might be the things that'll let us get to the temple. Can you get the rest of those poles and look for any more scoutflies while we check out the temple?^

"What?" Shiha frowned, unhappy. "But I want to go up the temple with you both!"

Daxter sighed. "Look, we do too, Shiha! But I bet you need blue eco to get up to the top and you..." Can't channel blue eco, was left unsaid. She scowled: Why did that have to come and bite her in the butt, huh?

She grumbled but said, "Fine. But you better hurry! It's already past midday and we didn't actually sleep at all last night."

Jak grinned at her and gave her a thumbs up before the duo tore off down the path towards the blue eco vent again. Sighing she shook her head and began her trek to the second oak pole.

No more large ape lurkers got in her way, but she unluckily ran into MORE lurker snakes. She slapped them around like they were piñatas with her rod until she finally made it to the oak pole. She leaned over and did the same thing she had done before and frowned as she thought about where that pole was. The area looked kinda familiar but she was pretty sure she had only passed through twice, at most.

Shaking her head, Shiha double backed to the wooden bridge that led to the jungle and peered out into the jungle from there. Tracking the blue eco beam seemed her best bet and, eventually, she spotted the third oak pole. Grinning to herself, she jogged up the path to it. Strangely, the way to get up to the top was a weird bounce pad made of cloth.

Bouncing on the pad, she flailed her hands before she dragged herself onto the area the bounce pad lead to. Shiha flopped down on her face with a groan because, whoops, that jump hurt her pretty hard. Mostly her guts, though, as precursors knew that landing on the edge of that cliff wasn't any good for them.

Pulling herself up from the ridge she half hung off of, Shiha shook her head and peered past the large swinging spike at the lurker frog beyond. Thank the Precursor's for the rod: There was no way she was going to be able to bunch that lurker and not get a fist full of spines and spikes. Kneeling down, she wait for her perfect chance to pass the swinging spike. Once it came she tore down and passed it as it came swinging back.

There was no time to catch her breath as she swung her rod at the lurker frog. It caught it across the face and it crumbled beneath the precursor metal. She crumbled too, adjusting her posture so that she was sitting instead of half collapsed. "That wasn't fun." She muttered to herself, half expecting a snide remark from Daxter or a cheeky grin from Jak.

Shaking herself, she stood up, knocked the 6th scoutfly from up above her head and turned to the oak pole. This one and maybe one more were all she needed to do, right? She hoped so: Trekking through a jungle on no sleep sucked.

Adjusting this pole wasn't that hard--it was already half pointed where it needed to be. Which was across one of the two wooden bridges in the area. It was one she, Jak, and Daxter hadn't crossed when they first entered the Jungle, instead going around the 'long way' as it were. Shiha sighed to herself before sliding off the small plateau and down to the area just before the wooden bridge.

It was kinda weird, she thought, how those precursor platforms were set up. It made one think they were supposed to climb, and yet... She was pretty sure there was nowhere for her to go, at the top.

Shiha shrugged and began her careful climb across the bridge. Half way across, with her feet firmly shut, she decided to finally give in: Daxter was right, she was scared of heights. Not that she was ever going to admit that to him. Tact wasn't his strong suit, when it came to teasing people about things.

She paused after crossing the bridge as she heard someone groaning below her. It was even a voice she recognized and she caught herself looking down. Instead of the same thrill of fear, she felt surprise: Bjorn, the local fisherman, was huddled down at the bottom, glowering into the river like it had mortally offended him.

Her hesitation lasted for only a second before she found a way down to Bjorn. He looked up as she approached, seemingly surprised at the sight of her. "Kids your age shouldn't out here," He said gruffly, his voice heavy with an accent she couldn't identify.

"Neither should a single fisherman." She shot back before looking down at the net. "What're you doing here? We've got the traps back at the harbor..." Shiha trailed off as Bjorn shook his head.

He sighed. "It ain't enough anymore. With all the lurkers in the waters around the harbor, it's scaring off fish. I wanted to try and stake out the river but..." He glowered into the waters, kneeling down. "See those purple eels? They're poisonous. Catching one can ruin an entire catch and they're plentiful in these waters."

Shiha frowned to herself. This was bad. If they couldn't keep fishing any of the waters around their home, not even the rivers in the jungle, what were they supposed to do? She jolted as Bjorn continued speaking. "If I could get two hundred pounds of the suckers here, that'd cover the village for a good couple of days." Bjorn kept scowling into the river waters. "But at this rate, it ain't gonna happen."

"I could try." She caught herself saying.

Before she could take it back, Bjorn looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Do ya really think a kid like you could handle this?"

A kid? Shiha was sick of that--maybe she was a kid. Maybe she wasn't--but she was sick of people blowing off what she could do just because of that. "Let me try," Shiha said with heavy determination. "If I fail, then I won't try again. But I won't."

Bjorn raised an eyebrow but handed the net to her. Shiha took a breath before getting comfortable on the dock's edge. HE knelt next to her and pointed into the river. "See those green and yellow fish? Those're the ones you wanna get. Anything else could poison the catch."

"Got it," She said, kneeling down.

She did have it--it took longer than she'd like to get all the fish that Bjorn wanted her to get but it was done in the end. Heck, she even caught some extra, just to show up the fisherman who had taken his time to mock her skills.

Try calling me a kid now, she thought as the final fish fell into her net.

Bjorn laughed, deep and hearty. "Well, what do you know! I guess you had it handled after all." He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a powercell. "Alright, take this in return--and unlimited access to my ship!"

Boat, she corrected internally, and we technically already have that. Shiha smiled at him and took the powercell. "Thanks! I'll...see you later, Bjorn."

As she left him behind, Shiha crawled up the path she had used before, Bjorn's laugh echoing up to her. At least he was happy, she mused to herself.

But one thing she was glad to run into were a duo of intrepid heroes. "Jak, Daxter!" Shiha grinned as the two stopped at the foot of the bridge. "When did you get out of the temple?--Actually, where were we going to meet up, anyway?"

"No idea," Daxter said but plowed on. "But, hey you'll never believe what we saw!!! And I defeated." He puffed out his chest as Jak rolled his eyes. "A giant lurker plant, that has its roots all over the jungle! Or it did, until I killed it for Jak."

Shiha's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "If you say so, Dax. You two can tell me more about it after we take care of the last tower and head back to Sandover--and maybe after we sleep?"

Daxter clutched his chest fur. "Don't you want to hear it?!"

"Of course. I just cherish sleep more than I do story time," Shiha said with a smirk. Jak shook with silent laughter and Daxter pouted at them. Conversation mostly over, the three of them began their trek down towards the final tower.

Linking it up with the single tower that was always raised was a breeze and meant that they were mostly cleared of the jungle. Except... "Did you two find the last scout fly?" Shiha asked, as they began walking towards Sandover.

^We found it in the temple. Did you find one out here?^ Jak signed.

She gave him a thumbs up. "Yep! Come on, the mayor wanted the power restored didn't he? Maybe we could get a powercell off of him before we all head to bed for the night."

Hopefully that dumb sage would leave them be, for the night. Or at least that Keira would chase him off before he could force her, Jak, or Daxter awake. Seriously, damn it, she was tired and wanted to sleep properly, instead of trying to do crazy stunts like fight one vs one with lurkers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why didn't i write the beach first??? because i didn't want to, i usually play the beach 2nd between it and the jungle
> 
> because i like the beach more.


	6. sandy beaches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d

"Beach, beach, beach, beach!" Shiha and Daxter chanted as they walked towards Sentinel Beach. Behind them Jak just shook his head, bemused by the duo's childish chanting. Pfft, Jak would soon learn that sometimes one had to live in the excitement of the moment, so that one had happy memories to remember later in life.

Wow that was weirdly philosophical, she thought. Time to go back chanting beach, so she could avoid that again.

She actually was glad they were taking the chance to go to the beach before they went back to Misty Island. There had to be powercells there, just as everywhere else. They needed all the powercells they could get there, could get anywhere, before they moved on to Rock Village. Who knew what the Blue Sage might need help with other there, considering the problems Sandover was dealing with. If their side was bad then what about the rest of the world that they knew of?

When they finally got to the beach proper, they once more had to deal with the cannon. She groaned. "I thought they would've stopped by now!"

"There ruining our beach!" Daxter shrieked. "It wasn't this put marked the last time we were here!"

Jak and Shiha exchanged wry looks as the ottsel raged about the beach. It was true that the beach was far more damage than when they first took control of the old cannon on the tower. Maybe...they should just take it back?

She grinned suddenly, bright and hard. "Let's get that cannon back!"

^How?^ Jak signed as he walked up next to the red-blond. Shiha pointed up towards the land pillars that stuck up out of the bay and then towards where a blue eco vent waited for someone to use. ^Oh! There're jump pads! Alright, Daxter and I will go and handle those. Can you track down some of the scoutflies while we do that?^

"Sure!" She tapped her forehead in a two fingered military salute before she jogged off towards the ruins, where she and Keira had once spoken about powercells hiding out in the ruins, here and there. Of course, she took the long way around, because screw wet clothes. Jak might be fine with it but she wasn't.

Shiha didn't expect the angry lurker dogs to come for her when she got up the plateau's rimming the cliffs. Ugh, had the lurker snakes spread rumors about her? Or that lurker frog? Wait, why was she thinking they'd spread rumors about her? These lurkers, if not all lurkers as far as she was aware, had been deeply tainted by dark eco. If they even had their minds any more, she'd be surprised.

Once more she was thankful for her rod as she used it to ward off the lurker dog. Their slobber splattered against her cheeks and burned with dark eco. She cringed at the feeling of her skin burning under the flecks of slobber and she pushed the lurker dog away from her. She spun in place, her rod connecting with its head and it crumbled. Puffing, Shiha took a moment to regain her balance. As she spun in place, she spotted a red lurker box tucked away besides the windmill.

Well, she supposed the spinning actually turned out good. Not only did she knock out the lurker dog, she also found a scoutfly. Shiha did have to admit though, as she went down and picke dup the box, that she felt bad for smacking that lurker dog. Strange, considering she didn't have any problems with the other lurkers.

Eh, whatever, she thought as she smashed the box. She could talk it over with Jak later--he was the only one her age who had personally fought lurkers after all. It'd be good to know how he dealt with feelings like that.

That was when she looked down at the beach and saw something that they really should've have overlooked: A powercell. Not only that, but she also noticed the utter silence of the beach.

She looked up and up towards the tower where the cannon was--it had finally stopped firing. Shiha waved both of her hands at the distant figures of Jak and Daxter and then pointed to the powercell on the beach.

Shiha would swear until the end of time itself that Jak had given her a thumbs up before diving off the tower and giving her percursors' damned heart attack. For one moment, she was sure that the lurker sharks haunting the deep waters of Sandover got them--and then the duo resurfaced. She gasped and leaned against the windmill.

Those shits! She was so going to yell at them when they caught up to her by the ruins!

Hesitating she decided to wait and make sure they got the powercell before pointing them to the ruins. That was they at least had an actual meet up point--They really needed to stop forgetting to make those.

It was really unfortunate that the pelican decided to swallow it before they could reach it. All Shiha could do was gape because--seriously?? What type of pelican ate powercells?! She's pretty sure they're not supposed to be eating metal at all!!

She could hear Daxter yelling something furiously and Jak nodded at the ottsel before the duo headed into the water after the pelican. Were they...were they planning on beating it up to get the powercell back? Were they crazy?! Shiha took a few steps forwards but she stopped when she saw Jak point a finger at her and shake his head. What? Did he want her to stay there?

But why?

Silent, she watched the duo shimmy up to the pelican and then punch it, to her immense horror. It was one thing to punch the lurkers when they were trying to kill them--the pelican was just sitting there in its nest! It was in the next moment that she realized why Jak had asked her to stay there. Because the powercell? It had flown from its beak and right next to her.

Her hands immediately snapped out and caught the slimy powercell. Shiha made a face as the pelican's salvia dripped down her hands. Yergh, this was gross! She was going to wash this, before they put it with the others.

That was when Jak and Daxter, instead of heading to the ruins, rejoined her. She glowered at them. "I'm mad at you two." Shiha declared, poking Jak's chest and then Daxter's. "You gave me a heart attack and then a slimy powercell--I've already had to deal with lurker slobber, thanks, I didn't want to add pelican slobber to that!"

^Wait, lurker slobber? Are you okay, there wasn't dark eco was there?^ Jak gave her a worried stare searching her face and spotting the small purple tinted burns that had been left from the flecks of lurker dog slobber.

She waved him off before he could really start mother henning. "Well, if we unblock those eco collectors, we won't have to worry about any dark eco burns, now will we?" Shiha put her hands on her hips and pulled the powercell away after Jak reached for it. "Nope, I'll give this to you once I rinse it. No more pelican germs."

Daxter snickered. "What, scared of pelicans?"

"No, it's just unsanitary." She sniffed at him. Seriously though, how sick could they get if they didn't wash it up? Probably very sick, she thought.

Jak grinned at her but didn't comment. Instead, he began jogging towards the eco collectors, which routinely got clogged up by something or another. Today, it seemed that someone had decided to block them with rocks and rubble. The trio stared at the vents, with varying looks of disbelief.

"What the heck!" Daxter was the first to burst. "This isn't just clogged, this is covered up!! The lurkers had to have done this!"

No duh, Shiha thought. It's not like there was anything else around that would want to cover the vents like this. She and Jak exchanged frustrated looks before all three of them split up to pick the vents clean. It didn't take as long as it used to, as Shiha used her rod to lever the rubble up and Jak would slide the rubble off from there.

In the process, Shiha accidentally absorbed quite a bit of green eco. She was pretty thankful to have the small burns on her face heal as if they had never been there--and also so her dumb friends didn't fuss over her like she was a child.

As they finished the last vent, Samos' voice suddenly burst through the din from Jak's communicator. "Oh so you finally clear them out, hm?" Samos' voice snorted. "I'm glad you finally stopped being lazy! I'll give you a powercell when you return."

The communicator went dead and silence reigned thickly for one long minute before Daxter screeched. "He has powercells?!" The ottsel smacked both his hand-paws on Jak's shoulder pad. "Why are we searching for so many if he has some?!"

"Because he's a self-serving jerk, Dax, duh." Shiha sighed as she bottled some green eco.

Jak looked like he wanted to argue again but he didn't comment, instead pointing towards the ruins. Shiha couldn't help but perk up at the clear unasked question. "Keira told me there's a powercell that phases in and out here--Apparently, it's still here, so I figured we should grab while we're here before it vanishes again for a month."

Daxter sighed. "Sounds like a better plan then going back to old green stuff angry." Yeah, probably. She knew she was still fuming a bit from his treatment of her over the past two days--or more specifically, how callous he had been about her 'lack of skills'.

Just because she couldn't fight doesn't mean she can't, damn it!

But regardless of she thought on _that_ subject, they still headed down towards the ruins. Jak and Daxter started a game of chasing the seagulls as she retrieved the powercell. Shiha stopped and watched them mess around like kids and she grinned: And here Jak had been the one who had shaken his head at their ridiculous chanting earlier!

There was one thing she was pretty sure none of them expected to happen: That chasing seagulls would result in a rockfall along the coastline. Like, how was someone meant to prepare for that? Freak accident or not, it was a pretty strange thing to happen.

"Hey..." Daxter muttered as he climbed on top of Jak's head to get a better look. "Isn't that where old Reya's flut flut rescue is?"

The trio exchanged horrified looked before racing back the way they came towards the flut flut rescue. Shiha loved flut fluts--they were soft and rideable and adorable. And it had always been hilarious to see the flut fluts that had imprinted on Daxter preen at his hair when she got him to come with her for a visit.

Along the run, Shiha slowed down to grab what seemed to a powercell just hanging out in the open--in an area she swore there hadn't been one before. But beyond that quick thought, she didn't spare much else for it: Keeping moving while avoiding falling was top of her priorities now.

It was only as they reached the entrance to the flut flut rescue that she realized that, for once, she hadn't needed someone else's help to get there. Hell, the previous times she had gone there alone, it had taken her almost twenty minutes to trek to the entrance. This time? Well, she was pretty sure it was less than ten.

"Guess I'm getting better at this adventuring thing." She mumbled as she stepped up to Jak's shoulder. "Is it okay...?"

^I think so." Jak signed as he peered into the entrance. ^I don't see anything wrong...^

Daxter leapt from his shoulder and gave them a thumbs up. "I'll go check it out--I'm small enough that I won't cause anything more to happen but big enough to see stuff."

Shiha and Jak both hesitated before nodding. ^Be safe.^ Jak signed as Daxter disappeared into the tunnel.

"I hope Reya's flut fluts are okay." Shiha muttered. "The poor things are dying out--if any got hurt today, there's no way I'm not going to feel guilty..."

Jak sighed. ^You're not the one who caused the rock fall, Shiha.^

"I didn't stop you, though!" She retorted, clenched her hands against her stomach.

She paused as Jak laid his hand on her shoulder. ^Shiha. We made that mistake--and how were any of us to know that would happen? Besides, we came to help clean up the mess that might've happened, which is better than what others may do.^ He paused and then smiled. ^Also, good jumping earlier.^

That brought out her own smile and she let herself relax. "I guess you're right--I still can't help the guilt, though." Jak shot her an empathetic look at that and the two let the conversation die away.

* * *

As time stretched on, Shiha became antsy. Daxter shouldn't take this long to make sure everything was alright--unless something had happened to him. Oh, precursors, did he get eaten by a flut flut?! The thought made her jerk in place and took a couple steps forward. Jak shot her a surprised look as she overcame her hesitation and plunged into the tunnel's shadows.

Shiha didn't look to see if he followed.

At the end of the tunnel, left practically untouched by the rock fall, was the small valley were Reya spent most of her days, with the flut fluts. It wasn't hard to spot the latter--the blue, red, and yellow feathers shone brightly against the greens of the valley. Reya was harder to spot, where she sat by the small pound, looking dazed.

Daxter was with her, trying to talk her through something. Shiha let out a breath at the sight of her friend being safe but jogged forward. "Hey!" She called as loudly as she dared. "Reya, are you okay...?"

The bird lady pushed her silly bird-like hat back, revealing a small trickle of blood. One of the yellow flut fluts made a worried crooning noise. "Ooh...hello Shiha...is that your twin?" The old woman asked.

Oh boy.

Shiha smiled weakly as she pulled one of the two bottles she had filled with green eco free from her belt. "I don't have a twin, miss Reya," She said slowly, "You're badly hurt."

"She's been like this the whole time." Daxter muttered, the guilt obvious. Reya had been one of the few adults who didn't bag on Daxter all the time. "I think she's got a concussion or something...Hey, Jak."

Daxter was far more despondent than she had seen in a while, so she let Jak handle that: If there was one thing she didn't know how to deal with when it came to Daxter, it was when he lost his mask of confidence. Shiha never knew what to say, that wouldn't hurt him.

Closing her eyes and pushing those thoughts away, Shiha pulled the globs of green eco from the bottle and slowly soothed it into Reya's injuries. They began fading until all that was left were a small scabs. Reya seemed to blink a few times until she said, "Oh my. It seems I was hurt, but now--Shiha, you can use green eco?"

Shiha flushed. "Uh, yeah. Don't tell anyone, please? I want to figure it out on my own." Reya seemed to hesitate before sighing and nodding. "Thank you so much, Reya." Shiha shot her the best smile of gratitude that Shiha could think of--though, maybe, she should try it out in a mirror first next time.

"I think the flut fluts are fine." Daxter suddenly announced behind them, boisterous once more. "Me and Jak are checking `em--none of them are limping or show any blood...though that's a little hard on the red ones..."

Reya chuckled lightly. "Thank you dears, for the help. Here--" She pulled out a powercell and the trio immediately scrambled to tell her it was fine--after all, they each thought to themselves, it was their fault this happened. "No, no, this isn't jsut for helping me now--Jak, you and your friend, Daxter, helped me with that young flut flut a couple months ago, yes? This was for that--I had intended to give it to you sooner but things kept coming up..." Reya sighed deeply.

Shiha snuck a look at her two friends, and both seemed a little teary eyed. She grinned at them. "Me and Jak will let Daxter know you said that, okay Reya?" She paused, hesitate. "Do you need help getting home? We have time--we were actually heading back ourselves."

"Oh, no no, dears!" Reya smiled. "I think you'd done enough helping--I'll be fine heading home on my own. Besides, I still have some things I must take care of here!"

The trio insisted for a few more minutes before the old woman, somehow, managed to convince them to leave. They found themselves walking home when Shiha stopped and turned around. "I just realized," she said slowly, "But I think I got a powercell from the rock fall."

Jak and Daxter both snorted at that and the trio of friends managed to have some laughs, despite the scares. They went to Daxter and Shiha's hut, where the tow began to sort through the powercells. Shiha declared that she was going to have to was her bag as well as all the powercells in it as she had never cleaned the pelican powercell.

^Are you really going to call it that?^ Jak asked.

"Yes," Shiha said with zero hesitation.

But eventually, they counted 20 powercells. "We need 25, don't we?" Daxter wondered. "How the heck are we gonna find the last five?"

Shiha's gaze was pulled out towards the sea, and a certain island. "...Well, we can knock it down to four, once you two get the powercell from Samos. And you know what? Can you hear that?"

The other two paused and stopped to listen. And then Daxter groaned. "Uuuugh, Jason is crying again, isn't he." It was not a question.

"He hasn't done that since he got Muse." Shiha pointed out. "How about you two find out about that powercell from Samos, and I find out what's up with Jason?"

"I am totally up for that." Daxter was immediately on board. "I'd rather deal with Samos--I have noooo idea how to deal with crying people, jeez." Jak stifled a laugh before getting up. The ottsel jumped and crawled up to his shoulder with a grin.

Shiha gave them a thumbs up. "You two be safe, okay?" Daxter shot back with a quick' we're in _Sandover_ ' before they both disappeared into the crowded village streets. Shiha turned on her heel and headed back towards Sentinel Beach, where Jason's hut was dug into the walls high above Daxter's own hut.

The climb up was annoying: How the heck did the sculptor get things up and down from his hut, with how steep and unforgiving the hill was? Though she supposed it was better than if it had breaks it in, like the cliff sides of the beach. When she finally arrived at the hut, Shiha hesitantly knocked on the door, peering into the window to see broken...things. Art things, she was pretty sure of.

"W-who's there?' Jason sobbed from within.

"Me, Shiha! Your neighbor?" She tacked on the end because Precursors was Jason forgetful. She waited for the muffled 'come in' before she pushed open the door and gave the hut an aghast look. "What the heck happened?!" It looked like a storm had gone through, with all of Jason's art projects broken across the floor. Only the large statue in progress in the back seemed to be untouched by the damage, even by the pain spilling across the floorboards.

Jason wailed. "Muse! Muse is gone, I don't know what to doooo!"

What?

"What do you mean," She said slowly, "Muse is gone?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sigurd, bjorn, and reya....then there's jason.


	7. isle of mist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d

"Why," Daxter said, sound pained, "Misty Island?"

"Because we've been all over Sentinel Beach and the Forbidden Jungle and seen no sign of Muse. She must've gotten to Misty Island, somehow." Shiha's voice was filled with serious determination. Which, she was pretty sure made Daxter despair. Jak just seemed ready to go along for the crazy ride.

The ottsel shook his head. "And we can't, I dunno, send actually warriors to Misty Island instead of me, you, and Jak. Whom, may I remind you, none have actually formal fighting training?" Oh ho, he was using formal language. Daxter must be pretty shaken by Shiha's demands and conviction.

She sighed. "Muse has been missing for few days, Dax. I'm...almost sure she got there because of us, if she is there."

That shut him up and she sighed: It hadn't been her intention to do that but. Jason was one of the few people she put her foot down on Daxter making jokes about. The poor guy was anxious and depressed all the time, he didn't need people being dismissive of him on top of it.

Jak waved a hand as he finished setting up the boat's propellers. Daxter leapt over onto Shiha's shoulders as she stepped away from the fisherman's hut and down the dock stairways. Jak moved back as she stepped into the boat and Daxter jumped down to the nose of the boat, posing as Jak started up the propellers.

Shiha stuck her tongue out at the ottsel. He stuck his tongue back at her.

They crossed the bank of mist surrounding the island and stopped at the rickety dock that Jak spotted last time they were here. She tapped it with her foot, hesitant to step onto it as Jak jumped up onto it. Daxter followed her wary example before the two glanced at each other and then followed Jak's example, the ottsel climbing up to her shoulder. "You really need to get a shoulder piece." Daxter muttered to her.

She jogged after him and said, "Jak, we should stick together--The beach and the jungle were safe but this place..."

Jak turned to her as Daxter hummed his agreement. "Shiha has a point. Last time we were here I got turned into an ottsel!!" He crossed his arms, looking frustrated. "I mean, if we didn't need more powercells, there's no way I'd willingly come here!!"

^Sorry, I kind of...just wanted to find Muse and grab whatever we can here before trying to head onto Rock Village.^ He signed tiredly. Shiha gave him a bracing smile: She knew that he was about as happy as Daxter's situation as Daxter himself. And that, despite their own assertions, Jak blamed himself for it.

Honestly, he has some sort of complex, Shiha decided.

"I know." Shiha touched his elbow as Daxter climbed over to Jak's shoulder. She grinned. "But I think we should find Muse last--unless you guys want to carry around a squirming non sapient squirrel thing all over the island?"

Jak laughed and Daxter snorted. "I don't wanna share space with that crazy sparkly thing; let’s find the other crap here first."

Of course, the first thing they did find was Muse--as per usual, with their luck. Shiha gave it a dark look as it scrambled away, leaving a trail of sparkles. "Be glad Jason loves you. Or I’d leave you here to sparkle all alone." She grumbled after it.

Jak and Daxter just grinned at her before heading towards the left--where they had overheard that meeting. Last time they had managed to skip most of the area, not that she could remember how. Most of that night, besides Daxter's accident, were kind of foggy.

Ha, foggy. Like the island.

Either way, they paused to let Jak take the zoomer out for its first true test spin. The harbor held several lurker bombers, who had been sighted harrying the ships that tried to come to Sandover. Taking them out, according to Keira, would help Sandover immensely. It also meant they'd have less to worry about, when they moved on to Rock Village.

"Don't drown!" She called out to them as Jak preformed some kind of dangerous tricks. Honestly, she's partially just glad to see the zoomer worked. Keira was going to be so damn happy, she could sing. Shiha stifled a grin as she saw Daxter make a rude gesture at her and the duo slowly returned to the bank, where the precursor telepad was left.

Jak signed at her as soon as she returned to them from the bridge about the water. ^We wouldn't have drowned. I can swim, remember?^

Shiha rolled her eyes. "Fine, next time I'll tell you not to get eaten: There's probably lurker sharks in these waters after all." That made the two boys look warily back at the waters they had just hovered through had over. _Take that, you dumb boys._

Of course, Shiha ended up leading the charge on the next overly dangerous thing: A ramp way that led up to scaffolding, with logs rolling and bouncing down it. Daxter screamed at her and Jak as the raced up and Shiha showed off her slowly increasing stamina by jumping up and over them. Or ducking, in the case of the bouncing ones.

Once they got to the top, it was a duel with a pair of lurkers; one guarded the other, whom was shooting randomly into the precursor arena below. Except...maybe it wasn't random. Shiha opened her mouth to speak when Jak's communicator crackled to life. "So!" Samos voice boomed out of it. "I hear you three morons have decided to go to Misty Island. Again."

"Aw, shut up, greeny!" Daxter snapped down at the communicator. "We need more powercells, so we came here, you jerk!"

A scoff was heard on the other end. "Well, perhaps you can be useful and stop the lurkers from opening the dark eco silo there, then."

Shiha stepped closer to Jak, so her voice could be heard by the communicator. "Dark eco silo?" She asked, glancing down into the arena. "Uh, the silo wouldn't be in the middle of a weird arena shaped area, would it?"

"It is. Why?" Samos' suspicion was frankly unwarranted. Why the heck was he so suspicious of her anyway?

Daxter rolled his eyes at her, clearly annoyed by Samos' question. "`Cause we already took care of it old man! Now can you let us go and finish up here so we can get off this creepy island?!"

The communicator was quiet for a couple of long minutes before Samos scoffed and said, "Fine. I will be waiting by the ring for when you reconnect the Blue Sage's ring." With that said the communicator went silent.

"What a jerk." Shiha muttered under her breath. Daxter grumbled an agreement as Jak winced and turned back towards the ramp that they would now have to go down as they had gone up it: Jumping and ducking. Shiha made a face--both at the remnants of the conversation and their new task--before rushing past Jak and down the ramp.

Man, was she pleasantly surprised when the logs stopped coming after she started going down. How courteous.

Once they reached the stationary ship back at the bay, they turned right and towards their original goal. Along the way, Shiha played baseball with a couple of mud lurking toads and Jak pounced a couple of bone swinging lurkers. Daxter said they both looked like kittens on the prowl.

"I," Shiha said, sounding offended, "Am a tiger. Not a kitten."

The ottsel almost busted a gut laughing at her. Shiha sulked.

When they arrived at the door, the first thing Shiha did was zip off to the far side, where the path ended sharply at a cliff edge. Hidden along the edge and the stairs up the precursor arena door was a-- "Scoutfly!" She shrieked and picked up the box, only pausing to give herself a good wind up before throwing the box at the ground.

It shattered and both Jak and Daxter leaned away as the scoutfly puttered up and away, like all the powercell-less ones did. "Darn." Shiha muttered. "I was sure it had one..."

Jak smiled wryly at her before picking up the glob of blue eco hovering by the arena door. Shiha looked up at the door opened and frowned into the arena, not stepping in. "Something about this seems weird." Like, a heavy 'this is bad' feeling hanging on her chest.

"Eh, it's probably your imagination." Daxter shrugged as he leaned on Jak's head. "Yo, Jak, let's go!"

Shiha stiffened up. "Wait!" She leapt after them, barely making it into the arena before the door shut behind the three of them. She groaned. "I knew I had a bad feeling! Why does no one ever listen to my bad feelings?!"

Daxter yelped. "Complain later, fight ambush now!" Jak dove into the fray without thought and Shiha groaned as pulled her rod free and spun it around, catching several lurkers across the face in one go. Red eco plopped up around them, repelled from her every time she got near and sucking into Jak when he did.

Rude, she thought at the eco and then rolled her eyes at herself: Its eco, and not sentient dammit.

One of the more vicious looking lurkers caught her alogn the arm and she stifled a scream as the dark eco in it's claws burned against her skin. Damn, damn, that was going to scar, if she didn't die of bloodloss first--

Daxter was suddenly _there,_ screaming and pulling on the lurkers face fur. Not really thinking and ignoring the pain, Shiha smacked it across the chest and it shrieked. Daxter fell and Shiha smacked it again, this time across the face.

She crumbled like a puppet without strings.

"Jak!" Ugh, no Dax, he needs to fight the lurkers, not bother with a deadweight... "You're not a deadweight, Shiha!" Wow, Dax sounds pretty upset now. She wonders why that is--is it because she's dying??

Someone clasped her hands on her arm and the warmth of green eco suddenly burned through the poison and haze of the dark eco in her arm. For a moment Shiha floundered because she could almost feel the dark eco and green eco battle out--until the dark eco sputtered away as if it had never been.

She coughed wetly. "T-that hurt."

^Its. Scar.^ Aw, man her vision was swimming too much for her to entirely make out Jak's signing. But she sighed and nodded because she kinda already figured that. Dark eco was a precursor's damn curse, in her opinion.

Daxter pulled on one of her ponytails. "You conscious?!" He demanded, looking furious.

"Ugh, don't do that. And yeah...Right now, anyway." She mumbled.

The ottsel stomped his feet, still looking more furious than she had ever seen him. "I knew this dang island was a bad idea...! You know what?! Jak let's go get that stupid Muse after taking Shiha back to the boat--"

Shiha shook her head sharply which was. A bad idea. Her head swimming, she said, "Muse likes me the best, after Jason. If anyone is going to get her to come with us, without chasing her all over the island, its' me."

The two have a staring contest on top of a contest of wills before Jak interrupted it, leaning down and pulling Shiha onto his back. She flailed as Daxter snorted. "Wha--Jak, I can walk. Mostly." Shiha grumbled into his ear.

"I don't think so," Daxter said, voice a heavy deadpan, "You look like a stiff breeze would knock you over, Shiha."

She rolled her eyes at him as they backtracked the way they came, only stopping along the way so Jak could kick over a couple scoutfly boxes they came across. Her time spent on Jak's back was enough for her to shake the fog the dark eco poisoning had left her in.

Regardless of how she insisted that, hey, she can walk now, Jak refused to put her down until the three of them reached the path back to the dock. Jak gently let Shiha down, ginning as she glared at him and Daxter and said, "That was stupid. What if a lurker had popped outta nowhere and attacked you??"

^So you wanted to face plant into the mud, huh?^ Jak signed, ignoring the point about lurkers.

"I wouldn't have!" Shiha scowled as Daxter and Jak both grinned and laughed at her. Ugh, boys.

Waiting for the boys to stop laughing at her, she said, "Look, can we just find the last scoutfly and Muse?" They should have enough powercells, now, not including the one Samos owed them from stopping that cannon.

Daxter waved hand. "Yeah, yeah. It's probably hiding somewhere over there in that jumpy area." J...jumpy area? Shiha stared at him because it _was_ an apt description of the way to the other entrance to the precursor arena, but... "We can get that stupid Muse afterwards."

Shiha sighed to herself before she trailed after Jak and Daxter. Pausing at the edge of the 'jumpy area' she waited for the other two to bounce across. If only she had fully recovered from the dark eco--she'd recovered enough that she could walk alright, but jumping was a little beyond here now.

Annoying, because she had just reached the skill of being able to jump pretty far without getting herself killed.

Something crooned in her ear and she jolted. Turning her head, she spotted--Muse, with its head tilted as it stared at her. The two stared at each other for a long moment before she jerked forward, trying to catch the squirrel thing before it got away. All she caught were sparkles.

"What are you doing?" Daxter's voice was exasperated as he and Jak returned to her flailing on the ground. She glowered up at him and just gestured at the sparkles on the ground. Daxter grimaced. "Ah, heck, Muse?"

Shiha pointed to the sparkle trail that led towards the bay. Jak gave her a thumbs up before offering his hand to her. Smiling slightly she took his hand and pulled herself up. Once she was on her feet, Jak started running after Muse's sparkle trail. Shiha puffed out her cheeks and raced after the younger blond.

Muse was difficult. Shiha almost preferred fighting the lurkers in the arena then chasing Muse around the island.

It wasn't even because it was difficult: It was because she found herself coated in mud and dust. She puffed out her cheeks in frustration as she kicked a bone bridge. "Ugh, we're not going to catch it at this rate."

"Split up!" Daxter pulled on Jak's hair. "Shiha you stay on this end of the bridge and Jak, you chase Muse back up across the bridge to her!"

Jak gave him a thumbs up and raced down towards where Muse seemed to be mocking them with a weird dance. The three of them raced around down there before Jak began to direct the squirrel up towards the opposite end of the bone bridge. Eventually, it ran straight towards Shiha across the bridge and divebombed in her in the gut.

"Oomph!" She yelped as the pain from the impact rocked her. Shiha instinctively curled around Muse to prevent it from escaping as Jak jogged across the bridge and paused next to her. She gave him a weak thumbs up. "C-caught her..."

^Time head back to Sandover, then?^ Jak signed, kneeling down next to her.

Daxter grinned and did a little dance as Jak helped control Muse enough that the sparkling squirrel stopped trying to escape. "Finally! We can go home." Daxter leapt down from Jak's shoulder and kicked the ground. "Let's go get that powercell Samos owes us and go sleep for the night."

* * *

Shiha glowered at the world as Muse continued to struggle in her grasp. She especially glowered after Jak and Daxter, who had run off earlier in the hopes of getting the powercell from Samos--supposedly. They probably just didn't want to talk with Jason or deal with Muse anymore.

(Not that she could blame them on the latter--Shiha didn't want to deal with Muse anymore either.)

Trekking up the path to Jason's cliff hut was an annoying struggle. Mostly because Muse kept trying to escape. Why the heck did it want to run from her so badly anyway? It used to be so calm and gentle...what had changed it to be like this?

She nudged the door open with her foot. Jason was still inside, sobbing about Muse. Shiha narrowed her eyes at the sculptor and said, "Hey, Jason. Guess who I've got?"

Jason's head snapped up and he gasped as he spotted the struggling Muse in her arms. He fumbled with something on the counter and hurried over, cooing at Muse as he held out some weird cheese thing. Muse seemed to calm as he came close, leaning forward to sniff at the cheese snack in his hands.

It yipped suddenly and leapt into his arms, snapping up the cheese snack. Jason cuddled it to his chest, humming a soft tune. "Thank you, Shiha." He murmured, pointing to his chest of drawers. "The powercell I owe you is in there."

Shiha watched him for a second until she realized that, no, he wasn't going to acknowledge her anymore. Shaking her head, she puffed over to the drawers and opened them until she found a powercell. Whether or not it was the one he intended to give her, she had no idea. All she did know was that they have at least twenty seven powercells now.

Along the way back to Daxter and hers hut was Jak and Daxter. The latter looked angry and tired while the former just seemed tired. "Everything okay?" She asked.

^Sort of." Jak signed. ^We'll tell you tonight. Or tomorrow, if we don't stay over tonight.^

"You're always free to stay over for the night, Jak. Besides, Dax might want to see what he wants to bring along, if anything." She had purposefully aimed the latter comment at Daxter, hoping for him to make a comment.

He didn't say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's one last chapter before rock village.
> 
> also, it's been half a week since Daxter was changed into an ottsel. they've gotta sleep some time, you know!


	8. rocky magma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd
> 
> lots of dialogue, this chapter

Shiha coughed as she inhaled the air of the lava canyon. It was hot and burning, leaving her chest feeling heavy as she leaned away from the open river of magma. Her three friends were talking by the zoomer, with Daxter complaining between Keira's explanations on how the zoomer's heat shield worked.

Not that she blamed him--she wouldn't be super eager to fly exposed over a magma river either. She just hoped they'd be alright, when they finally lifted off.

Pausing she looked away from the magma to spy Keira walking over to her as Jak got ready on his zoomer. "You alright?" She asked, holding out an air mask. "You look like you're breathing hard..."

"Eh, it could be worse," Shiha said as she accepted the mask, her voice being muffled behind it, "How's the prep work for the zoomer going?" She nodded to the precursor platform the zoomer rested on.

Keira sighed and crossed her arms. "I wish I had another five powercells--I could upgrade the heat shield even more, to make it impossible to overheat here! But finding five more powercellls around here may be a chore in the impossible..."

They exchanged looks: It was true enough that they had swept the entire area in and around Sandover to powercells. Even the Oracle's powercells had been grabbed, after forking over some powercells. If there were anymore around, they were unknown to her.

Shiha rolled her shoulders. "Well, here's to hoping that we won't need that shield upgrade--or I guess Jak won't need it." She made a face: Because of how big the zoomer was, there was no way she was going to be able to ride with Jak and Daxter. It was a one seater, after all.

Keira put her hands on her hips as Jak revved the zoomer's engines. "I better tell them about the air balloons... Talk to you later, before we head to Rock village?" Shiha gave her two thumbs up before turning and jogging back towards green land--and fresh air.

As the sun broke through the clouds that seemed to always hover over the canyon, she frowned. Sigurd should've left by now too, which left her to lock up two huts instead of just hers and Daxter's hut. Ah well, she thought, she owed him that much, considering that day two years ago when he had let her stay over.

She grinned at the memory: That was also the day Daxter had offered to let her stay in his hut for a little while. At the time, Sigurd had been suspicious of Daxter's intentions. Something about him flirting with some of the girls who had come in during the seasonal markets. Shiha had never seen him do that, though she had seen him flirt with Keira, after she turned fifteen.

...Wait, Shiha thought, did he have like an age requirement? Huh.

Rolling her shoulders, she hiked down to the beach and snuck past the irate farmer--who was still mad about their...distraction a couple days ago. Shiha grinned guiltily when she made into the main square of the village. She'd apologize--but then she'd get in trouble with the farmer. She really did not want to get stuck fixing up the yakkows' pasture fences, when they had a journey to complete.

Which was why she had to get a head on bolting up the huts.  And maybe she could stop by the mayor's place and... grease his palms with some precursor orbs to make sure no one tried to vandalize hers and Daxter's hut while they were gone.

Nodding to herself, she turned down towards Sigurd and Jak's hut. First things first, then she can bribe the mayor.

* * *

She stayed, maybe a little longer than necessary, in her home. There was a strange feeling, weighing her down in place. She eyed the flut flut wood figure that Jak had carved for Daxter, only months ago. At the quilt Keira had given to her. The communicator Daxter always left on his bedside table, in case Jak or Keira needed them.

It felt like this was the last time she was going to really be here, for a long time.

Shaking herself, she pushed herself away from the doorway and closed the door, taking extra care to bolt it tightly shut. She smiled to herself to push away any pain she had, emotional or otherwise. Those thoughts and feelings were silly: Once they got Daxter back to normal, they'd be able to go back to their usual lives.

Though, she would have to refill the green eco bottle when she got back.

The mayor was surprised by her arrival and greeted her warmly. It seemed he was still riding the high of having the blue eco beam returned to the windmill. Of course he was--it was only good press for him.

Giving him her best smile, Shiha requested for her and Daxter's hut to be taken care of, from vandalism--with this sizeable donation. The mayor warily accepted the 'donation' and waved a goodbye to her. She thanked him and then left the windmill behind, and headed up to the Sage's hut.

Keira was waiting for her on the bottom floor, shifting through gadgets and gizmos. It didn't take a genius to tell that Keira was nervous, waiting for the boys to turn on the precursor gate so they could go and check up on the Blue Sage and Rock Village. Shiha quirked a grin: Of course, she was probably more worried about the boys than Rock Village right now.

"Hey, Keira." She called, startling the mechanic from her shuffling. "You okay?"

Shiha grinned as Keira almost dropped her box of gears and metal scraps. The mechanic gave her a flat look before putting it down next to the precursor platform. "Shiha, you scared me!" Keira put her hands on her hips. "You couldn't have knocked first?"

She shrugged. "You probably wouldn't have noticed if I had knocked. So what was it that you wanted to talk about, anyway?" Shiha knelt down and picked up a couple of metal scraps that had been left on the floor.

Keira took the metal scraps from her with a sigh. "It's....nothing extreme. I just wanted to know what you're going to do from here on." She dropped them back into the box with the other scraps and dusted off her hands.

"Eh, I figured I'd be going with you all?" Shiha tilted her head. "Do you really think I wouldn't?" She deadpanned, her hands on her hips as she mirrored Keira's pose.

The mechanic shrugged. "I don't think Granddad would be okay with that. He's been besides himself since you stormed out that day." Keira looked frustrated: No doubt because she had been left to deal with her grandfather's tantrum.

Shiha gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry for leaving you to deal with that." She paused as something occurred to her. "You mean he'll try to stop me from coming, don't you."

"Yeah, pretty much." Keria grinned suddenly. "But nothing's stopping you from following us after we've gone through."

She grinned back. How devious of her, to think of something like that. Granted, Shiha had been thinking of something similiar herself, but having Keira suggest it made her feel better about it. "Yeah, sure! Don't wait on me when you cross the ring, though, okay?" Shiha winked lightly at her.

"And I'll make sure Granddad doesn't close it after he goes through." Keira shot back before she leaned against the precursor platform. "So, uh. I got another question for you." Keira's gaze was almost shy as she peered out of the workshop and towards her bedroom.

Frowning, Shiha said, "What's wrong?"

Keira grinned a little weakly, clearly hesitant. "It's about..." She stopped. "Er, never mind! It's silly. I can ask you about it some other time. But about the zoomer--You're not upset about not getting to fly it?" The mechanic almost squinted at her.

Ugh, she kinda wish Keira had just asked her question, because now she was curious. Instead she was left to wonder--Ah, well, maybe later. She hoped that Keira would still ask her another time about it.

But back to subject.

"Naw, I'm not upset." She paused with a deep frown. "Okay, maybe a little upset, but more at the situation than you. I'm still hoping I'll get a chance to ride it soon, though!"

Keira shook her head with a wry smile. "Yeah, okay. Hopefully there'll be a chance for you to get a chance to fly the zoomer soon." _And that it didn't get trashed by Jak and Daxter's flight._ Those words were left unsaid but definitely heard by both girls and then grinned at each other.

It was then that Samos' yell echoed down from above their heads. Keira sighed and pulled herself away from the platform. "I guess I better get going. I'll see you soon, Shiha." She stopped at the open doorway and over her shoulder, said, "Can you lock up the hut when you leave? The upper floor will be fine but this floor really needs to be closed down when we leave."

"Yeah, I got your back!" Shiha gave her a thumbs up before the other girl headed out. Once she was out of sight, Shiha began work on bolting up the floor, windows and all, before heading up to the second floor.

She peered into Samos' strange study to see if either Samos or Keira were still inside. Neither of them were and she let out a sigh of relief: Alright, now she can follow them. After all she had finished bolting all the huts she had been asked to. Grinning to herself, Shiha walked over and poked at the ring until it did something.

A weird see through screen popped up in front of her face and she squinted cross eyed at it for a couple of minutes before she realized what exactly the screen was for. It listed Geyser Rock and Rock Village on the list and she grinned as she selected Rock Village. The ring seemed to swirl double time after her selection.

"Alright, here we go!" Shiha grinned and leapt through the ring.

* * *

"Oh no, not you." Samos' groan made her roll her eyes as she stumbled into the hut. It was distinctly darker in Rock Village than Sandover, as if the sky was cast over. Which, uh, if one looked out the window turned out to be the case, she noticed.

Keira and Jak seemed more interested in something on the other end of the telescope while Daxter raged at Samos. Rollin her eyes, Shiha leaned down and picked up Daxter who flailed in her arms. "You can yell at the old man later, Dax," She said, "Keira and Jak saw something."

Daxter glowered up at her. "Ugh, put me down!" She dropped him and he scurried up to Jak's shoulder and stuck his tongue out at her. What a kid, she thought.

"If you're done...?" Keira asked while the trio shut their mouths tightly. "Right, so-- _Rock Village is on **fire**!"_

Jak raised both his eyebrows, clearly startled. Shiha leaned over Keira's shoulder and peered out the window. No surprise, there was nothing but glittering red flames scattered throughout the village the hut overlooked. It was strange to her that the fires still burned: Why hadn't anyone put them out yet?

Samos made a face. "How in the world...Why didn't he send me a message?" He grumbled, glowering into the darkness of the clouded skies.

^Does it matter?^ Jak signed. ^Right now we've got a village on fire and no answers.^

"Jak's right!" Daxter cried, as he also peered into the telescope. "There's nothing but fire to see everywhere! Do ya think...do ya think they're all--?"

Keira raised a hand before Daxter could finish that thought, shaking her head. "No way," she said, "If they were, I think there'd be more damage to the village. As for what cause it...I think I know what." She leaned over and pointed from the window to what seemed to be the ravine to a open air volcano.

Daxter groaned. "Another Volcano?! And let me guess: Me and Jak gotta take care of it."

"I'd help, but I'd get in the way, remember?" Shiha shot a glare at Samos as she said the last word before continuing. "But how do we get up there to begin with?"

Keira gently pushed Jak and Daxter away from the telescope so she could kneel and give the area a better look. "Well, it looks like there's a boulder in the way...and that the Blue Sage was working on something before he disappeared. But--"

Something roared, distantly but loudly, and Shiha instinctively covered her ears.  Whatever it was that had roared, was angry and she didn't want to meet it. She opened her eyes, realizing she had shut them at the yelling roar.

"What the heck was that?!" Daxter cried, his hands tight on bunches of Jak's hair.

"Not anything good," Keira said grimly, "There's some sort of mutated lurker up there, wearing precursor armor. I--Yeah, it looks like it’s the one attacking the village. I guess it wasn't something as simple as a volcano after all..."

Daxter pulled on Jak's hair and the blond winced. "How're we supposed to handle something like that?!" Daxter demanded.

Shiha took a deep breath. "Very carefully," She said, "And we should probably scope out the situation in Rock Village, first, before we try and take that thing on." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short chapter, for once


	9. lost valley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d

Shiha braced her foot on the Oracle, glowering at it. "Heey, now." She smiled darkly up at it. "You know, we could use those powercells, you've got."

"...Trade me 120 precursor orbs." The Oracle responded, deep voice grim. Shiha continued to smile darkly, gridding her foot against the Oracle. "Please remove your foot." The Oracle stated.

She laughed coldly. "No. You're being stingy with the powercells we need to help people. Give `em to us, or else." Behind her, Jak and Daxter exchanged bemused grins as she tried to intimidate the Oracle into giving them the powercells.

^Hey, Shiha?^ Jak signed. ^You could try negotiating for a cheaper trade price?^

Rolling her eyes, Shiha said, "No way, Jak. Either they give them for free, or we leave them here and get powercells in other places." Like the villagers, who might just be willing to give some up if they did some questing.

The Oracle continued to deny Shiha's demands until she furiously kicked it and stormed off. Jak and Daxter trailed after, both of them more amused now by her actions than bemused. Shiha eventually stalked to what seemed to be the main square of the village, were people who had been evacuated from the farthest edges of the village were living.

Among them were a few people of note--A gambler named Lori, a researcher named Rowen, and a disgraced hero named Mar. The latter seemed to be close to the blue Sage, from what she had picked up from the chatter. Which meant...he would be their best bet on finding out the Blue Sage's fate. Grinning to herself, Shiha approached Mar as Jak and Daxter bustled towards her. She could talk to the other two later.

"Hey there!" She greeted, waving at Mar as she stepped up next to him. The man jolted, his armor clanking. "Soo, I heard you know the Blue Sage?"

Mar made a despairing noise. "Knew, more like. He's...gone." He stared off into the distance, looking tired and exhausted, as if he'd been beaten by something unimaginable.

Shiha tilted her head. "How can you know? He's a Blue Sage--The chances that whoever is leading the lurkers would kill him is kinda low." ...Ah, whoops, maybe she needed to take lessons in tact, right alongside Daxter.

"They've killed other people, like those who had died in the fires from the volcano." Mar stared off into space, as if he was seeing some horror that Shiha couldn't. "Why wouldn't they kill him?" She watched him with a heavy heart and she wondered if she shouldn't've talked to him. Maybe she should've talked to the gambler or researcher, instead.

She turned her head as Daxter clambered into her shoulder. "I think we should leave him be, okay?" Daxter muttered into her ear. "Let's go somewhere else, okay?"

Shiha nodded slightly and smiled weakly at Mar before backing off towards Jak. Daxter leaned on her head and said, "So what was that about, huh?"

"He's a friend of the Blue Sage." She explained. "I thought that he might be able to tell us something but--he's really shaken." By something more than just the Blue Sage disappearing. But still, fires from the volcano? Did it erupt? But he implied the lurkers had something to do with it.

Daxter opened his mouth to say something--when someone spoke up. "Excuse me." The researcher, Rowen, tilted her head at them. "May I inquire as to why you were speaking with Mar?"

The trio turned to look at her before looking at each other. ^We might as well tell her.^ Jak signed, tilting his head to Daxter and Shiha. ^Maybe she can tell us about things in the area, and what we can do to get some powercells.^

She grimaced: They needed fifty powercells to get that machine Keira had found the blueprints for to work. Unfortunately, they barely had thirty which meant they had to pick up at least twenty in the area.

"Okay," She said, deciding to just spill, "Hey, so. We need to know about the areas around the village and also...Could you tell us what's up about the fires from the volcano? I know there's a lurker there, but..."

Rowen grimaced with a sigh and the woman said, "Let's go sit down, okay?" She turned to lead them away, out of the crowds.

* * *

"Alright you two." Rowen crossed her arms, expression serious. "Mar is dealing with a lot right now--if you want to know about the Blue Sage, I can tell you what you need to know."

Shiha raised a hand to get her attention. "We're three--Daxter is just as smart as the rest of us."

"Smarter!" Daxter clutched the fur on his chest, mock offended. Jak poked him and Daxter flopped back down onto Jak's shoulder guard.

Rowen paused before sighing. "I understand. Now, as for the Blue Sage...He's been missing for a few weeks now. It was after he finished the levitation machine to move that boulder when we went to check up on him and found his hut torn apart."

Frowning to herself, Shiha wondered if it was as bad then as it was now. Keira was trying to tidy it up with her father, considering they'd probably have to stay there for a couple days. But...now she wondered if there was any evidence of who had kidnapped the Blue Sage.

"We're planning on breaking through--We gotta head towards the old sage citadel," Daxter said, "So do ya got any leads of powercells?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, I have some powercells available--but I don't feel safe parting with them for free." Rowen tilted her head to him as she fiddled with a pack on her belt.

Jak tilted his head and tapped Shiha's arm. She turned to her and he signed, ^We're probably going to have to go through the areas around here so we might as well pick up some requests and get powercells out of it, right?^

Daxter grumbled under his breath but leaned back, content to let Shiha deal with the 'request taking' stuff. She rolled her eyes at him before returning her gaze to Rowen. "We'll be willing to help you out--We just need some info on the areas around Rock Village too, if you can provide that."

Thankfully, Rowen was willing to do so. She explained that to the east, below the ocean, was the Precursor city that they had been investigating just before the Lurkers had attacked. To the west was the Precursor Valley; it was a valley surrounded and littered by precursor ruins. Probably remnants from the land city that connected to the sea one.

To the north east, not far from the levitation machine the Blue Sage had built, as a swamp that the locals fondly called the Boggy Swamp. There was apparently something suspicious going on there with the lurkers, but. They had to take care of the other stuff, first.

Rowen explained that she had left some equipment in the precursor city that she would be glad to have back. In the valley, lurkers were disrupting the local wildlife and causing damage to the local ecology--which made sense somehow? Both would get them powercells so.

Clicking her tongue as they left Rowen behind, Shiha thought. "Maybe we should split up--I don't like the idea of staying here any longer than we have to." This whole place was nerve wracking--besides, the sooner they left, the sooner they'd take care of the Lurker terrorizing the place.

^Where do you want to go?^ Jak signed, raising an eyebrow at her.

Shiha tapped a finger to her lip before pointing west. "I want to take care of the valley. It sounds pretty easy--or at least easy enough for someone with only a few days of combat experience. Sound like a plan?" She asked, glancing at her friends.

"Sounds good to me." Daxter leaned on Jak's head. "How `bout me and Jak head on to the precursor city and you go over to the valley?"

She nodded. "Yeah, okay. See you tonight?"

The duo gave her a thumbs up before they scurried away to the docks, where a path of floating platforms led to the underwater city. Shiha was a little jealous: She kinda wanted to see what it was like herself! But they really did need to hurry. They could afford to stick together in Sandover because it was familiar territory--Now? They might be in more danger, but that just meant they needed to move faster.

Jogging to the west led her to a dip in the earth. To her surprise, Keira was there, surveying the area with an air of solemnity that made Shiha hesitate. She didn't exactly what to interrupt Keira, but she might just have to.

"Keira, what are you doing?" She asked and the blue haired girl jolted fumbling with the binoculars she carried.

Once she got a good hold on them, she spun around to look at Shiha. "Shiha!" Keira scolded. "You scared me--like, badly. Where's Jak and Daxter?"

Shiha shrugged. "Checking out the undersea city: Now, what the heck're you doing here? I thought you were clearing up the Blue Sage's lab to find something." _Or anything._

Keira made a face at her, like she had smelled something disgusting. "Granddad is being...unreasonable. I got frustrated and left. I got curious about this dip here and--" Keira lit up suddenly, as she thought of something. "Shiha, there's a precursor pad here! I can bring the zoomer around for you to test out!"

"Wait, seriously?" Shiha stepped up next to her to peer down into the dip--the ditch, maybe?--and spotted the transporter pad Keira meant. "Huh! ...Didn't the zoomer get sent back to Sandover, though?"

The mechanic shrugged. "Yeah, but I can easily tune this pad to the one at home and transport it here--So, what do you say? Wanna ride the zoomer?" Keira was so excited--and so was Shiha, in all honesty. She'd been waiting for this chance since she had been forced to step aside for Jak.

Shiha gave her a thumbs up. "I'm ready when you are, Keira! Let's do this.

* * *

"Okay, so I'm all set." Shiha shifted on the zoomer so that she was as comfortable as she could get on it. It wasn't the most comfortable thing she had sat on but she'd live. Of course, she did wonder how comfortable it was for Jak.

Keira grinned at her as she stepped back. "Alright! There's a built in communicator on the zoomer that'll turn on when you say 'turn on', okay?"

Huh. That might end up being pretty useful, if she found something strange. Giving her friend another thumbs up, Shiha pulled down her borrowed goggles and revved the engine once before the zoomer began flying from the pad. Maybe she should've gotten a scarf, she thought as the wind buffeted her face.

Immediately, she could see at least one lurker, terrorizing a little squirrel-like mole...thing. She wondered if that was one of the things Rowen had meant, when she said the lurkers were disrupting the ecology. Either way, she turned her zoomer towards the lurker and jerked her precursor rod off her back and aimed the end forward, like it was lance.

The lurker heard her and seemed to squawk-screech as she aimed the zoomer at it; she couldn't heard it very well over the hum of the zoomer. Either way it led her on a merry goose chase until her rod cracked against its skull, causing it to crumble on the floor of the valley. Shiha pulled the zoomer in a tight turn and slowed it to look at the lurker--which began to disintegrate into flecks of dark eco.

"Gross." She muttered and shook her head.

Clearing her throat, Shiha said, "Turn on." There was a clicking sound from the radio between the handlebars. "Keira, do you read me?" She asked, hoping that the communicator worked like Keira had said it would.

"Is something wrong, Shiha?" Keira's voice crackled through the radio.

She let her shoulders slump with a light sigh. "Just wanted to make sure the communicator worked. And I think I got the first lurker." The first of many, as she doubted that only one could do the damage Rowen was so worried about.

Keira hummed in understanding. "Good luck with the rest of the lurkers," She said, "Also to turn it off, just say turn off."

"Alright." Shiha nodded and said, "Turn off." There was another click from the radio and the soft crackling faded away. She almost called Keira's name again before shaking her head and revving the zoomer back into flight.

Somewhere ahead of her was another lurker and she bared her teeth in a grin. Directing the zoomer towards it, she repeated her chase and attack against this lurker like she had done the last. The disintegrating form was still just as gross as the last and Shiha hoped she would never get used to that.

That was all of the lurkers in the eastern half of the valley--which was much smaller than she thought it would be. A couple of the lost squirrel-moles eventually found their way back to their hidey holes under Shiha's watchful gaze. Once she was sure they were all inside, she moved on to the western area of the valley.

There seemed to be three more lurkers in this half, all of them completely unaware of the other two's deaths. Clutching her rod, Shiha turned the zoomer towards them. It was kind of dull work, for all that she had to be on her toes to make sure that she didn't run into anything. It had something to do with how repetitive it all was, the chasing and collapsing.

Shiha sighed to herself as the last lurker crumbled under her rod's strike. "That's the last of them." She cast a look around for more moles when something twitchy and purple caught her eye. Strange plants grew around a couple of rocks, twitching and grasping. What the heck are those? "Turn on. Keira?"

"Hey, Shiha! What's up?" Keira asked.

Frowning, Shiha said, "Do you know anything about plants? Anything at all."

Keira was silent for a long moment before she said, "I know some. Granddad always made sure...Is there anything strange?"

"Yeah, a bunch of purple plants. They're twitching, too, and I'm pretty sure plants shouldn't twitch like that." Like they were convulsing. Shiha shuddered at that thought.

A soft gasp came from the radio as Keira said, "Dark eco plants?! Those're supposed to be rare--Shiha, is there a green eco vent nearby? You need to kill those plants, now, before they can spread outside the valley and into the village!"

Shiha frowned. "Any reason why that's an urgent thing?"

"Dark eco plants can and will choke out the life of anything else--including people! If any dark eco plant seeds got on someone..." She could almost hear Keira's shudder through the radio. "Look, just...take care of them if you can."

She sighed before casting a look around and spotting a green eco vent tucked away in a corner. "I found a green eco vent--Should I get off the zoomer or--?"

"No!," Keira said, voice sharp, "Don't get off the zoomer--not until that area has been sterilized with the green eco, okay?"

O...kay. Shiha muttered an agreement and a quick ‘turn off’ before revving the engine and stopping in the green eco vent. Eco burned against her senses as she channeled it. For a brief moment she thought she could see all the lines of the green eco pipes throughout the world--and then it was gone.

She laughed wryly to herself before twisting the zoomer around to aim it at the dark eco plants. "Here we go," Shiha said to herself. Revving the zoomer, she leaned closer to the zoomer as she zipped across the green plains and through the dark eco plants.

The dark eco plants seemed to actually screech as she crossed over them, the green eco crackling across the purple plants. They shriveled as she turned to make another run. Back and forth, she spun around the dark eco plants until her green eco faded away and she trailed back to the vent.

When she turned back, Shiha sputtered. Some of the plants were recovering, despite being shriveled to nothing. Shiha gritted her teeth and tore across the plain with the green eco she was channeling once more. The dark eco plants were stubborn things and now she understood why Keira had told her to stay on the zoomer.

If she had tried to do this on foot, there was no way she wouldn't've gotten all the dark eco plants.

Shiha hit the last dark eco plant and the last of her green eco zapped away, causing the dark eco plant to shiver and shrivel. She watched as the plants the dark eco plants had been choking the life out of seemed revitalized from the green eco she had channeled. With a slightly crooked smile, she turned the zoomer away from the patch and said, "Turn on."

"--Shiha, can you hear me?" Keira sounded exasperated as she tried to get Shiha's attention. Had she been doing that the entire time Shiha had been clearing out the dark eco plants?

She smiled a little at her friend's concern. "Yeah, I can. Don't worry about the dark eco plants. I've taken care of them." Shiha watched as a giant flower unfurled in the center of the flowers and plants.

Keira sighed as something clicked on her side. "You didn't get off the zoomer at all?"

"Nope." Shiha revved her zoomer's engine as she eyeballed the lurkers she could still see hovering around in the distance. Hm, hm, how could she run them over, before she headed back out?

Shiha jolted as Keira clicked her tongue. "Good," She said, "I don't want you getting hurt by the dark eco seeds or spreading them further on."

Crossing her arms and leaning against her zoomer, Shiha said, "What's up with that, anyway? Why would dark eco plant seeds stick to me?" It seemed extremely strange to her that seeds could stick. There were so...smooth, usually. How could they stick to her?

"Seeds stick to people. Just--generally, seeds can stick. It's how seeds can travel, besides on the wind or on bird feathers." Keira explained with the heavy air of an expert. "Dark Eco plant seeds are worse. They can extend some spines to attach themselves deeply into clothes and fabric. Evenually they pull them back, but..."

Right, when they pull back, they're probably far away from they began.

Shiha sighed and flicked her bangs out of her face. "Right, got it. Won't frolic in a field of dark eco plants." She paused. "Okay, I'm going to handle this lurker and check up on those moles around here before I head back out. See you later--Turn off."

Keira tried to speak up before the radio cut out. Shiha stifled a grin--she'd apologize later, but for now she couldn't help but laugh at her friend's ire. It was rare that Keira got worked up about anything, for all that she was getting worked up a lot more recently.

Not that Shiha could blame her on that point. With everything that was going on recently, it made sense that she'd be more on edge. All of them were more on edge, since Daxter had been turned into an ottsel and headed to Rock Village.

She let her thought trail off as she moved her zoomer and drove towards the lurker she had spotted earlier. They just kept coming, continuing to be kind of a pain in the butt. She was just thankful she didn't have to ram them with the zoomer itself--the rod she wielded liek a lance was very useful.

When the lurker died off, the body vanishing like previous ones, Shiha slowed to a stop and swung off the zoomer to stalk the blind moles. All of them were like angry cats: A pain to capture, if she didn't know that she could just out stamina them. Ah, the joys of being large and athletic.

Well, not as athletic as Jak was, but semantics.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Shiha sighed at the reminder that Jak was off somewhere else with Daxter. Shiha leaned over the zoomer and peered through the grasses to the many mole holes. A couple of the blind moles peeked their heads out to stare sightlessly across the valley before they ducked back in their holes.

"I should go." She told them before she hefted herself onto the zoomer. Shiha revved it for a moment before heading ahead back towards the path out of the valley. She passed through a couple tunnels and stopped just through the area where she had saved the first set of moles. They seemed just as content as the other set, hidden as they were in their tunnels.

Shiha let out a breath before she urged the zoomer to the path and let gravity pull her down the hill; out of the valley of Precursor Ruins and into Keira's annoyed gaze.

* * *

”Thank you for the help." Rowen greeted her warmly. "My trackers show that they've gone back underground--Were the lurkers too much trouble?"

Shiha smiled at her, ignoring Keira's frosty stare at her side. "Nope! I handled them. I don't think you'll have too much trouble for a bit. They might come back, though, if we don't take care of the guy up there." Shiha nodded up towards where the armored lurker waited in lava and magma.

Rowen sighed heavily, her arms crossed in front of her. "I know. Getting rid of them will help for now, but I truly hope that we can stop them long term." She scowled up towards the volcano. "Now if only we could get rid of that guy--We might just have a chance of doing that."

"That's our long term goal." Shiha admitted. "That's why we needed the powercells. Jak should be back from the city soon..." And hopefully back with enough powercells to power that machine.

She nodded. "Right. I suppose I should thank you for doing that. You don't have to help us--yet here you are, even if you are getting something out of it." Rowen paused and then shook her head, her braid swinging heavily behind her. "Regardless, if you do end up needing more powercells, there might be some out in the Boggy Swamps."

Shiha straightened and Keira made a face. "Boggy swamps?" Keira asked, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Yes." Rowen began her explanation. "There's a heavy lurker presence over there. We don't know what they're doing--we've been cut off from there for a couple months now. There were a couple people who lived out there but...well, Mar took a couple of the platforms we used to get there and the waters are filled with lurker sharks right now so we can't just swim."

Mar? Again? That guy was paranoid as all heck. Shiha wondered why he was so instent on stopping everyone from trying to help. Maybe he was just trying to keep people safe, but it worried her that even when people who wanted to help were being blocked. Did he think that no one else could stop that lurker, if he hadn't been able to?

Shiha clicked her tongue. "Well, we'll just have to get them out of him. Hey, Keira?" She turned and grinned at the blue-green haired girl. "Wanna menace a former hero to get what we need?"

Keira smirked darkly. "Let's do it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shiha your enjoyment of menacing people is rubbing off on keira
> 
> ...keira is just really frustrated shiha keeps ignoring her worries so now she's funneling that into menacing people.


	10. boggy, boggy swamp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d
> 
> anyway have this chapter

"Maaaar, won't you give us the platforms?" Shiha patted her eyelashes as she tapped her fingertips against the precursor rod in her hands. "It'd make all this so much easier, you know. You wouldn't even have to do anything, we'd handle it all!"

The former hero was resolutely staring at the far wall of the corner they'd claimed to interrogate him. His hands were taunt on his armor, his expression twisted with frustration. It was clear he was trying his best to ignore them and their demands. Shiha wasn't having any of it, but Keira...well.

Keira leaned forward with a cheery smile. "Mar, we have a way to stop the lurker. We've almost got enough powercells to power the machine the Blue Sage was working on. All you have to is unleash the platforms to us. Or...I suppose I could just let Shiha get the answer out of you." Keira shrugged and crossed her arms in front of her. "It all depends on you."

Mar crossed his arms in front of his chest and turned away. Seriously?, Shiha thought, Was he really going to pull this crap? She raised an eyebrow at him and looked at Keira, asking for permission silently.

She sighed and nodded at her.

Shiha grinned back at her before she cheerfully dropped her rod on Mar's shoulder. "Sooo, you won't just hand them over? I wonder how long your armor can last with this precursor rod smacking it in..."

Mar stared at her, aghast. "Why--You're threatening me. You're trying to be a hero and you're threatening me?" He sounded baffled by her actions and it just made her smile grimly. Of course she was threatening him--How else were they going to get to the swamp?

"I'm not trying to be a hero." Shiha put her free hand on her hip. "I'm trying to get to the Sage Citadel. And you're in the way."

Mar scowled at her and they continued staring at each other, almost as if they were hoping their stares would kill the other. Keira rolled her eyes and shot a look at Rowen, who was watching from the sidelines and also guarding their corner. The scientist made a face at her as she clearly didn't want to get involved.

Shiha jolted as Rowen stepped up next to her and put her hand on her shoulder. "I understand your frustrations, Shiha," Rowen said, "But glaring at Mar like you hope he drops dead won't get him to tell us where the platforms are."

She bit down hard on the inside of her lip. "...I know that." She muttered as lowly to Rowen as she could. "I can't help it." Well, she could, but Shiha was too tired from beating up lurkers and keeping her zoomer on track to be patient right now.

Keira crossed her arms at the former hero. "Look, I've said this already, but we have a plan. A plan we're almost finished with--Right now the only person you're helping is yourself and even if you no longer call yourself a hero, your opinion still matters to these people." Keira gestured behind them towards the villagers.

Most of them were nervously looking at them, some even looked overly concerned. Not for the girls--no, they were worried about Mar. Shiha thought it was strange that he couldn't know how much the people cared for him. He was called their 'hero'--they don't call people they don't like their heroes.

Shiha rolled her eyes. What a guy. She wanted to say something but--well, she wasn't charming. Shiha was loud and vicious and stubborn. Keira was the kind and charming one, who would have a better time convincing people.

"They care about your opinion and your wellbeing. So they'll respect your decisions." Keira's expression darkened as she crossed her arms. "Shiha and I do not. We don't care that you're trying to 'protect' us--It is our choice to make and we have made it. Stop trying to enforce your will on us."

Mar stared at her for a long time before burying his face in his hands. "Fine. Fine! They're...hidden under the dock and decks of the Hidden Mole diner. Now leave me be." He turned away from them, shuffling his feet and crossing his arms like a small child.

Without thinking about it, Keira and Shiha turned to Rowen. The scientist sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "That diner is where the platforms to the precursor sea city are--I'll take you and we can start working on getting them from under it." She led the two of them away from Mar's sulking form to the distant decks.

Once they got there, Rowen instructed them to stay there while she got the implements to pull the platforms out from under the deck. Shiha rubbed her forehead with a deep sigh as Rowen disappeared. That thing with Mar had been far more stressful than it should've been. Why can't people just trust them? Was it because Shiha just...didn't look trustworthy?

If she didn't, she'd be more understanding, but no one would ever say. Like they were afraid of hurting her feelings.

She puffed. It'd be better if they'd just be honest to her in her opinion. Yet people always seemed to think that being nice was the best course of action, even when they were lying. Shiha hated that, when it was aimed at herself.

(Other people though, were fine.)

As they finished pushing the platforms out so they could lead them around, Jak and Daxter joined them from their side trip. "Oh, you found the platforms?" Daxter asked. "Did that stupid hero guy finally tell you where they were?"

"Rowen is who he told." Shiha grumbled. "Apparently, because we're just trying to get through to the Citadel, we're not good enough. Because we're not 'heroes'." She and Daxter shared a scoff while Jak smiled wryly at them.

Keira clapped her hands to get their attention. "Oi, if you three have time to complain, then you have time to help get these platforms in place." Shiha stuck her tongue out at her before she tossed Jak her long stick, pulling her precursor rod from her back. It wasn't as long as the stick, but it was good enough to their purposes.

With Jak's help, it only took a few more minutes to get the platforms into place. Keira stretched and then grabbed all of the powercells they had available and headed to the machine. "Remember!" She called back. "We need a few more powercells--get `em from the swamp, okay?"

"Yeah, I remember!" Shiha called back, cupping her hands around her mouth.

Jak waved his hand. ^What was that about?^

Shiha slipped her rod back onto her back. "We need to head to Boggy Swamp to pick up the rest of the powercells we need to make the Blue Sage's machine work." She jumped ahead of them onto the platforms, mindful of not falling into the water.

"Ugh, a swamp?" Daxter groaned as he leaned on Jak's head. "Why can't we just sleep for a little bit?"

Shiha shrugged. "I guess we could go and nap, if you two want to. It'd be better than to just go into a swamp and drown in all the mud." She wasn't looking forward to the mud at all.

Jak tapped his chin in thought. ^...Yeah, okay, I think I want to nap for a bit too. Then we can head to the swamp.^

Yawning, Shiha glanced at Keira. "I think Keira will be fine--want to nap at the Blue Sage's place?" Jak and Daxter exchanged looks before nodding. Shiha gave them a thumbs up and the trio turn and trekked through the crowd of villagers back to the hut. They got back and exchanged annoyed looks with Samos until Daxter and Shiha split from Jak--whom got dragged off by Samos.

Shiha rolled her eyes. Honestly, why did he keep doing that? They were well aware that Samos only approved of Jak being friends with Keira, what with her being his granddaughter. Her and Daxter, though? Well. Some days Shiha thought he disapproved more of her than of Daxter, for whatever reason.

Shifting the mattresses so she can lay down, she looked at Daxter. "So, anything fun happen in the city?" She asked as she continued to put the mattress into a comfortable position away from the window.

"We almost drowned in dark eco." Daxter confessed. "That's all I keep remembering, when I think about that place."

Oh, jeez. "Why was there that much dark eco in there?" Shiha asked, baffled. "It's underwater!" If there was dark eco down there, than why hadn't it started to leak out into the sea water?

Daxter shrugged. "Dunno. All I know is that it sucked a lot."

Shiha hummed before Jak came back from his talk with Samos, looking unhappy. She looked up at him and waved a hand. "Are you okay?" Shiha asked as she patted the mattress.

^Sort of.^ Jak signed as he sat down on the mattress.

"You wanna talk about it?"

He shook his head and laid down, turning his back on the two of them. Shiha and Daxter exchanged looks before they followed Jak's example. If he didn't want to talk, then Shiha wasn't going to force him to do so.

* * *

They woke up a couple hours later, with Daxter poking their cheeks. Shiha yawned while Jak tried to wave Daxter off. Once they'd all woken up properly, they slipped out of the hut and headed back towards the Boggy Swamp.

Keira was still there, working on the machine after they struggled quietly past the crowds of villagers. When they joined her, she looked up at them from where she was poking around the insides of the machine. "What's up, you three? Have you not gone into the swamps yet?"

"We decided to take a nap first. You should probably go get some rest soon, too, Keira." Shiha explained, peering down at the machine's innards.

She sighed. "I will. I guess I'll talk to you later? Also, you two owe me stories about how your underwater trip went!" Keira shot Jak and Daxter a stern look and the former smiled and nodded, agreeing easily.

They left Keira behind and continued along the platform path over the water to the thin canyon tunnel. Shiha frowned at the clouds that seemed to perpetually hover over the swamp. If it rained on them, it was going to make their trip much harder than it already was.

Then they stepped out into the first clearing of the swamp and she groaned. "Not mud," Shiha said distastefully. Mud was hard to run into, back in Sandover. Whenever she had, it was in the jungle and that was recent, not the past few years of her life.

Jak seemed perfectly fine with plunging into the green mud, with Daxter's hands tightly wound into the blond's clothing. Shiha sighed with heavy dissatisfaction before she followed him, shuddering as the mud squelched between her toes.

As they walked further in, lurker rats crawled out from within the mud. Shiha shuddered in disgust before kicking one of the rats away from her, pulling her rod from her back. It squawked at get before it tried to come at her again, only to be smacked away by the rod.

She glanced over to Jak, who had seemed to finish his rat easily enough. Daxter gave her a thumbs up and then yelled over to her. "Jak was just saying, apparently the lurkers are trying to get old precursor junk from the swamps here and we need to take care of it!"

"Okay!" Did Samos tell him that? And if so, why hadn't he mention it to her? Shiha kept smiling even as she felt a thrill of fear: Did Samos say something to him about her? If he didn't she didn't want to throw shade--she did that enough when Samos harped on Daxter. If he did, then she reserved the right to do so.

Shiha internally shook her head as she eyeballed the flying lurkers above their heads. She had to focus on the now...which speaking of, there was no way she could hit those, what with the lack of being able to channel yellow eco. She could probably smack it if it came at her, but she really would rather not.

"So, what happened with the valley?" Daxter's voice shook her from her thoughts. He had scrambled off Jak's shoulder and was clinging to Shiha's back, climbing up as he spoke. "`Cause something excited must've happened!"

She laughed. "Sorry, Dax, it wasn't anything interesting. The most interesting thing that happened were some dark eco plants I had to kill with green. That's about as interesting thing that happened." Shiha peered at Jak out of the corner of her eye, still worried about his behavior.

Daxter groaned and leaned on her head. "Uuugh, seriously?" He started whining about how 'Me and Jak almost get drowned in dark eco and you just duel a dark eco plant? Literally the worst.' Shiha just stifled a smile at his grump.

^Hey.^ Jak signed after he finished shooting down the bat lurkers. Shiha tilted her head at him. Jak seemed to hesitate for a moment before he continued. ^Samos mentioned something strange earlier. Something about Keira--Is Keira okay?^

Shiha raised her eyebrows, bemused. "Yes? She's been totally fine in all the time I've been with her since you guys left: The only problem is that she needs some sleep, and she's already promised to sleep so." She shrugged lightly at Jak, trying to ignore the strange tension in the air.

Jak hesitated before nodding. ^Yeah, okay. I guess I was just a little worried.^

"Friend worried or cruuuuush worried?" Shiha asked innocently. Daxter snickered against her hair as Jak made an x motion with his arms, his face a brilliantly shade of red. It was probably even redder than her shirt was.

Tension dissipated, the trio made their way further into the swamp. They would split up on occasion, mostly when Jak needed to use the blue eco jump pads to break tethers and yellow eco on the other ones.

There were more of the latter than the former, which made their lives much easier. But there was a ridiculous amount of rat nests, each of them at least as tall as Jak. They kept coming out, until Jak destroyed them with his yellow eco shooting.

Shiha swept her hair back. "Man, this is. Great," She said with heavy sarcasm, patting the flut flut sitting on the precursor teleport pad. Why they had sent it over, she had no idea, but she supposed it could be useful for...stuff?

"Can you believe that I heard some people live out here?" Daxter spoke up from where he sat on the edge of the 'precursor junk.' "Like, who would want to live out in all this mud and junk?"

Jak smiled slightly and signed at them. ^The same reason our local bird lady spends half her time with the flut fluts?^

Daxter rolled his eyes. "What, you think someone living here is living here because of some animals or something?" The orange ottsel sighed and leapt from his seating and up onto Shiha's shoulder.

"Jak has a point." Shiha sighed deeply. She didn't like admitting it, but it was true enough. "There might be someone crazy enough to live out here, if it's for an animal." Miss Reya did love living out with her flutfluts.

Daxter groaned and grumbled about it for a while more before he and Jak took the flutflut up to the upper levels of the platforms scattered around the swamp area they were in now.

Shiha, on the other hand, follow their path from below, until she spotted an old slimy hut. It didn't look like it was some place she'd think someone lived in, but a man was sticking his head out. All she could see of him, properly, was a big bushy red beard and a strange hat.

"Hello?" She offered weakly as she stopped a few feet away from the hut. "Sorry to disturb you--We're just passing through."

Loudly, the man(?) said, "What?"

She blinked, her small smile frozen on her face. Did she not speak loud enough? Or was this the 'I don't care what you have to say' what? Shiha had no idea how to approach this.

(Last time she'd run into some of the latter, she and Daxter had tied a bunch of fabric coated in bird poo all over their huts. Shiha remembered the telling off they'd gotten for it, but they had both seen it as their best prank so far.)

"Sorry for disturbing you!" Shiha repeated louder, just in case. "We're just passing through!"

The man let out a loud 'Oh!!' and gave her a thumbs up. "Okay! Just don't mess up the treats I have out--I'm trying to get my buddy back." He chirped cheerfully.

He was pretty cheerful for someone who lived in a swamp, she thought. But what was that about a buddy? She wondered if there someone else here but if there was, why would you only leave treats out to find them?

Weird.

Shiha sighed before saying loudly; "Yeah, I'll keep that in mind!" She paused as the man nodded and disappeared back inside the slimy hut. She hoped it was cleaner on the inside than it was on the outside--but judging on the surroundings, it probably wasn't.

Finally settling, she waited for Jak and Daxter to catch up. Shiha hoped the man wouldn't come out again while she was waiting because, stars, would that be very awkward. She didn't have any idea what she would say to him.

"Hey, Shiha!" She looked up as Jak and Daxter rushed through the mud towards her. As soon as he was in range, Daxter flung himself across the gap and onto Shiha's shoulder. "What were you doing?!"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Waiting for you?," Shiha said.

Daxter flustered and babbled a mile a minute. Normally, she would be able to keep up but he was also muttering--which made it much harder. Jak snapped his fingers, drawing her attention. ^We didn't realize you weren't waiting for us back at the precursor pad. Did you follow us from down here?^

"Yeah, pretty much?" Shiha shrugged. "It wasn't too hard--Though there is definitely someone living here." She pointed to the slimy hut, where they could see the man from earlier bustling within it.

Jak tilted his head. ^Did we disturb him?^

Shiha shook her head. "Nope. Apparently, he's hard of hearing and can't hear us very well. I have to yell--so just a little bit of noise probably doesn't bother him." And to not touch the treats but they weren't interested picking up anything that wasn't precursor orbs or powercells.

Actually...now that she thought about it, maybe they should help him get his pet back. They might just get a powercell out of it--and yeah, maybe that was a little selfish, but they needed powercells.

Daxter made a face at her. "You're going to suggest something crazy, aren't you." It was not a question.

"Hahaha..." Shiha tilted her head with a grin. "He did mention a missing pet and...well, we could get a powercell out of it?"

He groaned at her. "Don't we have enough?"

^We never have enough.^ Jak signed. He crossed his arms. ^...Do you have any ideas, Shiha?^

"We talk to the guy and agree to find his pet--he has treats and we can use them to get the pet's attention." Shiha suggested and turned towards the hut. She saw Jak and Daxter exchange looks out of the corner of her eye and she rolled her eyes. Honestly, these boys.

She knocked on the slimy hut's door and the man peered out with a cheery smile. "Yes?" The man asked.

Shiha smiled brightly at him. "You mentioned your 'buddy' being missing earlier--Is there anything I can do to help you?" It was a little weird to be close to yelling to just get her statement across to the man but...well. What can you do?

"Eeh, you wanna help?" He sounded excited. "You'll help little old Carl find my buddy?"

Carl? Was that his name? Shiha hesitated before keeping up her smile. She was just going to assume it was. "Yes, of course. I only ask...can we ask your treats to find your buddy?"

He nodded rapidly. "Of course you can! Just as long as you bring Buddy back." ...Okay, so the pet's name was Buddy. Good to know, Shiha thought to herself.

"Thanks, Carl," Shiha said, testing her assumption. When he didn't correct her, she continued. "We'll be back with Buddy when we find him, okay?"

When he nodded Shiha gave him a thumbs up and jogged back to Jak and Daxter. "He gave us the clear!" She told them, grinning. It was nice to be trusted by an adult--even if it was an adult that didn't seem all there.

(That felt like a coming theme, with her.)

^We heard.^ Jak signed. ^He was pretty loud.^

Daxter rolled his eyes. "When you said he was hard of hearing I didn't think you meant that bad!" She stuck her tongue out at him and the trio went to work on finding Buddy.

As they did so, Shiha wondered if she should've asked what Buddy looked like. It was a bit too late to go back now but...well she could think about later. Right now was finding Buddy time.

Eventually they found a strange crocodog...thing ducked between a couple of rocks. It seemed to be shuddering and trembling. Whatever it was that scared it was out there, probably, or else it might've left all on its own. Shiha picked it up and cooed at it.

She was rewarded with a kick to her stomach.

"You're rude." She told it, while her two friends shared laughter behind her.

Shiha grumbled as she carried 'Buddy' and began walking back to the slimy hut. She hoped this was Carl's pet or else she might just lose her mind. Hopefully there weren't any other animals that were attracted to these treats in the swamp.

When they arrived at the hut, Jak knocked on the door. When Carl poked his head out, he barely paid Jak any attention, hyper focusing on the crocodog-thing Shiha was carrying. "Buddy!" He wept as Buddy body flopped off of Shiha's chest and into Carl's arms.

Seriously? She scowled but quickly masked it with a smile. "So I guess that was Buddy after all!" Shiha chirped with fake cheer. "There are still some treats left over as well--So here you go." She snagged the two mushroom-like treats from Jak's hands and handed them over.

Carl grinned. "Yeah yeah, thank you!" He put down Buddy inside the hut, where it shuffled off further inside the hut. "Here, take this old thing--I found it awhile back and you can have it." He held out his hand and there was a powercell, inactive, sitting his hand.

"Thank you for the gift!" Shiha chirped cheerfully as she snatched the powercell from him. Carl smiled again through his beard and then disappeared back into the hut. Shiha hoped she never saw another crocodog-thing again.

* * *

Shiha banged her rod on a lurker rat's head. Jak and Daxter had gone off to cut the final tether to the air balloon hovering over the swamp. Shiha had been relegated to defending the precursor jump platform which she was...fine with. It was just annoying about how many lurker rats there were.

There were plenty of broken nests around the area: Clearly lurker rat nests, destroyed in the past. Or at least that's what Shiha had assumed. Somehow, for some reason, there were still lurker rats dug down deep into the muddy earth beneath the weird broken trees.

The assumption that there wasn't any lurker rats was why they had agreed to split up without checking them. That was a mistake they couldn't make it again--though she knew she wouldn't have to deal with it as they were almost done with the swamp.

Shiha grumbled to herself as she knocked another lurker rat out. She really hoped that Jak and Daxter would come back soon. It couldn't take that long to destroy those tethers, could it??

She began banging on one of the nests, trying to collapse the tunnels beneath her feet. Shiha stumbled a bit as the tunnels broke apart and the ground collapsed a little beneath her. The mud squashed between her toes and made a disgusted squawk.

Pulling her feet out of the mud with a squelch, Shiha tip toed to a nearby log, scrubbing her feet off on it. Yeah, her feet would be immediately recovered in mud but at least the mud was between her toes again. Shiha went back to collapsing the tunnels--and then rubbing off her feet again.

It was a rinse and repeat for her as she worked on collapsing the tunnels. Above her head, the lurker balloon drifted away into the darkness of the sky. Shiha stopped in collapsing the tunnels, instead looking up to watch it go. She almost didn't notice the blue eco platform whirl to life or Jak and Daxter returning from just beyond the impassable rock wall.

"Did you get it?" Shiha asked as the duo landed on the platform.

Jak gave her a thumbs up. ^We handled it. Why are you covered in mud?^ He raised his eyebrows at her.

Shiha paused and looked down at herself. She thought she had cleaned more off of her clothes, though it seemed that she had been wrong about that. Flushing, Shiha looked away from her friends. "I was collapsing some of the nest tunnels. The nests we thought didn't have any more lurker rats in them."

"Whaat?" Daxter groaned. "Are you kidding me? Weren't they empty?"

She made a face at him. "Nope, they were just underground instead of above. I've collapsed a bunch but--" Interrupting it but also punctuating her point, a lurker rat dug itself out of the last nest.

Jak moved past her and kicked the lurker rat away from them. ^I think we're done here.^ He signed backing away from the nest.

Shiha agreed because she really didn't want to deal with them anymore. She nodded towards the tunnel at the far end of the clearing, the opposite of where they entered. "Let's check out that tunnel before we head back to the Rock Village, okay?," Shiha said.

"Agreed!" Daxter declared, tugging on Jak's hair. "Let's get outta here, before my fur gets clumped up by all this mud." Jak nodded a little before the trio headed towards to the tunnel. Shiha bounced up to peer around Jak into the tunnel when they arrived inside.

Daxter clicked his tongue. "Lurker rat nest." He stated simply.

Shiha made a face; another one? This swamp had an infestation of lurker rats, didn't it? She wrinkled her nose before she jogged around Jak and towards the nest. Grabbing her rod, Shiha swung the rod around into the first lurker rat.

Behind her, Jak snagged a ball of yellow eco fluttering near a tunnel wall and shot the nest until it broke apart. Shiha continued to knock the lurker rats away and turned away from the broken remains of the nest. The remaining lurker rats ran off, disappearing out of sight.

"Great, we finished it off!" Daxter grumbled as he leaned on Jak's head. "Can we head back now?"

Ignoring Daxter for a moment, Shiha headed down to the end of the tunnel. She furrowed her brow as she spotted a familiar looking clearing. That was strange, wasn't it? Shiha looked down and tried to gauge how far the jump would be as Jak and Daxter come up next to her.

^Wait...isn't that the entrance?^ Jak signed.

Shiha frowned. "Entrance to what?" She asked, eyeballing the clearing. It didn't look like an entrance to anything, to her.

"Wait...No way! Are you kidding me?!?" Daxter leapt from Jak's shoulder to Shiha's head. "That's the clearing from when we came into the swamp!!" He tugged on Shiha's hair as Shiha's mouth fell open. That's insane, she thought. How could they have looped right around to the beginning?

Jak jumped from the edge and down into the muddied clearing. Shiha frowned and exchanged looks with Daxter. Shoulder we go down too? She asked silently.

Daxter groaned and nodded. Shiha wrinkled her nose before jumping down to the muddy clearing. The mud splashed up against her clothes, leaving another layer of mud on her pants. She made a face and then looked up at Jak. "We looped. The whole swamp is a loop!! What the heck??"

^I have no idea.^ Jak shrugged.

Shiha puffed out before she stomped towards the way out of the swamp. Daxter leapt back towards Jak as she stepped up to the green grass of the path out. This was absolutely annoying, she thought, that they had basically gone in a loop. It was also a little convenient but she just wasn't going to let it go.

Keira was definitely going to hear about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a lot of fun writing shiha and keira together! but all the swamp stuff drove me nuts and i didn't want to skip writing about an area again--so i forced my self through it.
> 
> there is some pacing issues but despite my best efforts (aka rewriting it a few times) i couldn't fix it. I actually cut some scenes to also try and fix it. this is the result, which is...slightly badly paced, imo.


	11. valley pass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta`d
> 
> oh hey....an update after nearly a year
> 
> i'm so sorry for those who were interested kdfdsj

Shiha made a face up the mountain path, where she could hear the roars of the modified and mutated lurker echoing down to them. Beside her, Keira was fidgeting with the inside of the Blue Eco Sage's machine. She seemed distracted between Shiha's story and working the powercells into the system.

Finally, she paused and looked up from the guts of the machine. "Okay, so let me get this right. The swamp's main path wrapped around back to the entrance? That's rather...convenient." Keira punctuated the thought by wiping up the eco staining her hands.

"I know, right? Though, I'm still pretty sure there was something else going on...Lurkers, maybe..." Shiha made a face up the mountain path.

Keira shrugged as she adjusted the wires a second time inside the machine. "I think you might be just paranoid, Shiha." Shiha made a face at her as Keira finished wiring the power convertors together and shut the panel down.

After it closed with a snap, Keira looked up at Shiha. "Speaking of the swamp, where are Jak and Daxter? They should've come with you to deliver the powercells," she said.

Shiha made a face. "No offense, Keira, but I don't like your dad. And Jak and Daxter went to let the old guy know that we should be leaving soon. So. Didn’t want to go." Or more like Jak and Daxter probably would be, depending on how much room they had to move up there. If they didn't have enough...well, Shiha would have to sit out.

If they had a chance to work together, though, Shiha would take it. She didn't like the idea of just sitting by while Jak (and Daxter, of course) ran head first into a volcano.

Keira nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know. You two...never stop showing how much you hate each other every day. It's just a little frightening, you know? I wish things weren't so hostile between you two." She furrowed her brow and looked out towards the overcrowded docks of the Rock Village.

She bit her lip and looked away from Keira. It was pretty obvious that even if Shiha tried to be civil at this point, Samos wasn't going to be civil back. Their 'friendship' was basically the opposite of Shiha's friendship with Jak, Daxter, and Keira.

Turning away, Shiha leaned against the cliff side wall. "I'd like it to be a little less hostile too, but as long as he bad mouths Daxter, I can't get along with him." She huffed and ran a hand down her face. She felt like she had already mentioned it multiple times and started feeling redundant for saying it again.

(Once, she could just push her own feelings aside so she could learn how to channel green eco properly but now? Now that was no longer an option for her.)

Silence fell as they decided to just drop the subject. It wasn't as if they could get Samos to stop his insults--with how stubborn he was--nor get him to like Shiha. So it was merely something they had to avoid.

At least that was the only subject they had to avoid entirely.

They kept quiet for a long while after that, just...enjoying the silence and companionship. Keira continued fixing up the machine's connectors and Shiha closed her eyes to listen to the sound. It was calming, to hear something from Sandover. Nostalgic, she supposed was the word for it.

She smiled faintly at the thought of it. Shiha would be glad would they could finally leave Rock Village and get to the Sage Citadel. From there they can talk to Gol, get Daxter fixed, and then go home and sleep for a year. Shiha looked forward to doing that sleeping: All of this was way too exhausting, physically and emotionally.

"Hey, what do you think about this machine, anyway? How does it work?" Shiha found herself asking to break the silence.

It wasn't strange for her to be interested as machines that use eco are so very strange. Most of them seemed to use blue eco, from what she had seen, but she always wondered if there were ones that use other eco. There wasn't any machines she knew of that used green eco but Shiha couldn't help but wonder what that would be like.

Keira peered at her out of the machine. "Come down here, I'll show you." Shiha knelt down before lopping onto her back and rolling under the machine with her friend. Keira pointed at the wires she had been connecting. "Okay so these? These are what connect the converters for the powercells to the rest of the machine. Normally this would connect to the blue eco tanks but...we don't have time to fill up blue eco tanks for this."

 _Plus, we don't know where they are,_ Shiha thought to herself. "So, normally it'd use tanks?" She asked.

"Mmhm!," Keira said, "I jury rigged a converter to use the powercells instead of blue eco--normally this owuld use like, five tanks of blue eco and a couple powercells. It was just easier to use all powercells instead."

Shiha frowned. "Will it still work the same without the blue eco?" She absentmindedly tapped the chamber where the powercells were.

Keira tilted her head at Shiha, tugging her goggles down around her neck. "It should! That's why I'm using the converter--It'll change the neutral power that comes from the powercells into the blue eco power. I'll have to test it to make sure the converter is working properly, though."

"How does that work exactly?" Shiha frowned at the wires. Even with her explanation, Shiha was still a little lost, staring at all the wires. Probably why she wasn't a tech person.

She tapped Shiha's hand and pointed at a blinking light. "This'll show me during the text if it's working right. It'll turn blue if it's working right." Keira grinned at her. "Which is what we're about to test now."

Shiha squawked as soon as Keira flipped the switch. There were a couple of sparks above their heads before the blinking light changed to a steady blue light. Keira clapped her hands with a sharp cheer.

"It worked!" She cried out.

Taking a deep breath, Shiha said, "You almost gave me a heart attack, holy orbs, Keira! It could've exploded with us under it!" Shiha pouted in frustration as the other girl started laughing at her reaction. "It's not funny, Keira!"

"Oh, yes, it is!" Keira giggled. "I've never seen you make a face like that before! You looked like you were about to throw yourself into the water to get away."

Shiha huffed. "Hey! The waters with the hungry lurker shark is probably safer than this thing exploding on top of you!" She crossed her arms and rolled over onto her side.

Keira reached over and rolled Shiha back. She said, "Sorry for scaring you, Shiha. It was just supposed to be a joke, but if it bothered you that much, than I really am sorry. Uh--That actually wasn't my first test, by the way. I tested it earlier, I was just trying to get a stronger output earlier." She started tugging on her googles, clearly nervous.

"...Okay, fine, I forgive you. Just give me more of a warning before you do that in the future, okay?" Shiha tucked her loose hair behind her ear as she spoke.

Grinning, Keira gave her a quick hug before she rolled out from under the machine. Shiha followed her and watched the other teen close the machine's panel. Keira patted it light and said, "Well, that's it. We've got a higher output and we should be able to move this once Jak and Daxter come back with Grandpa."

Shiha nodded in agreement and sat down on the wooden steps attached to the machine. It was pretty quiet now that they had both gone quiet. Thankfully, it wasn't awkward: You don't always have to talk with your friends to enjoy spending time with them.

They spent the next hour like that until Jak, Daxter, and Samos finally arrived.

The latter of the trio looked annoyed and tired, for some reason or another. Shiha decided not to ask why he might look like that: She wasn't up for one of his rants at the moment.

Keira took the moment of shifting atmosphere to look up. "Hey, granddad. Didn't you sleep at all?" She asked, frowning at him.

"Yes, I did." He huffed. "Now, is the machine ready or not? We need to keep moving towards the citadel. I have a bad feeling..." The sage stared off towards the water-y horizon, looking grim.

Jak gestured to Shiha. ^Shiha, are you going to fight with us?^ He asked.

Shiha smiled at him. "I'll try! But if the area isn't big enough I might have to hang back." Which would be terrible but what can you do? She'd rather not fall into lava trying to fit somewhere she couldn't.

He gave her a thumbs up and turned to Keira. He didn't even have to try and ask her to turn on the machine as she also turned towards him. "You ready to go, Jak?" She asked. After he nodded, Keira said, "Alright, stand back while I turn it on."

As soon as they stepped back, Keira pointed the machine's array at the smoldering boulder and flipped the machine on. It glittered with blue before a beam connected it to the boulder. The boulder lifted up into the air as Keira tilted the array further up.

"I think we're clear," Shiha said as she slipped up by the boulder.

Keira grinned. "Nice! Alright, I'll keep the boulder up until you guys give us the all clear."

Daxter jumped onto Jak's shoulder and said, "Hey, how're you guys gonna keep up with us three?" His tail flicked back and forth with irritation: He'd probably already guess what Shiha knew. That Keira and Samos wouldn't be coming up the same way as them.

"The red sage's ring is the last one before the citadel. The yellow sage guards that ring." Samos sniffed. "But they are just as off as the blue sage's was. Besides, we will merely slow you down." He gave Shiha look that said 'you better stay here.'

She stuck her tongue out at him and climbed onto the ledge. Shaking her hands to get what little ash that she got on them, Shiha said, "C`mon, Jak, Daxter. Let's go finish this guy off and keep going!"

Jak gave her a thumbs up and climbed up next to her. "Wait!" Keira called out and Shiha turned around to her. The other girl tossed Shiha's staff up to them and she caught it. "Don't forget that." Keira teased her.

"Thanks, Keira!" Shiha yelled back. Twirling the staff, she turned to Jak and they returned to their trek up the cliff. It wasn't that long, really, what with how there was already path that lead up to the cliff.

The top of the cliffs slowly lost their greenery the further up they went until all that was left was cracked earth. Gray ash dusted the path and Shiha coughed at the sight of it. She hoped there wasn't any dust in the air: It'd make breathing while they fought hard.

Shiha twirled her precursor staff. "Alright, you guys ready for this?" She asked as she peered into the valley like structure where lava had settled.

"Ready when you are!" Daxter declared, wiggling on Jak's shoulder. Eager beaver for someone who wasn't even going to be actually fighting. That was all on her and Jak to be quick during the upcoming fight.

Kneeling down, she peered out towards the valley. The mutated lurker seemed to be napping at the far end of the valley, as if it hadn't even noticed the trio. Shiha clenched her staff as she edged out.

And then Jak dashed passed her and onto the hardened obsidian floating in the lava.

She let out a furious hiss and dove after him. "Don't dive in head first--!" Shiha cried out as the mutated lurker woke and lumbered to its feet. She winced as it roared over their heads and slammed its feet into the lava.

Great, they woke it up.

"Jak, what do we do now?!" Shiha gasped as she ducked under a rock the lurker threw at them. Jak jerked away in the opposite direction before making several short gestures. All of them translated to: 'Don't die!'

Yeah, that's great advice. Of course she didn't want to die and wasn't going to try and die! Why would she even try to die?

Shiha let out a huff as she used her staff to cross the gaps back and forth between the floating rocks. She winced as flicks of lava hit the bare skin on her knees. Probably shouldn't have worn shorts into a lava valley.

Grimacing, Shiha hit the obsidian rock and forced herself not to flinch as more lava burned against her. She flicked her cap off the small orb of green eco she had attached to her hip. Only a couple of flicks were needed to heal the damage and she stood back up--just in time to see Jak land next to her.

"I think we can get closer!!" Daxter yelled, waving his paws around. Said paws snapped back down onto Jak's clothes as he jumped again.

Looking up, she noticed the lurker. Whom was at the end of a bunch of precursor platforms. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Jak sparked with blue eco. No doubt it was because he'd gotten blue eco, somehow.

Shiha looked back at the lurker with another grimace. Right, there was no way she was making that jump. Maybe if she tried with her staff but--well, she wasn't willing to risk that over lava. "I'll watch your backs! Go on ahead!" She called out to them and saw them nod back in acknowledgement.

There probably wasn't much she could besides heal but maybe that would have to be enough here. Especially as it didn't seem like either Jak or Daxter had carried any green eco up there.

_Boys._

Ducking under some rocks that were tossed through the air, Shiha used the rod to knock a couple of rocks away from her face. Ahead of her, Jak was racing across the platforms to what seemed to be a ball of yellow eco. "Shoot him up!!" Shiha screeched over the bubbling lava.

She could hear Daxter yelling back, though the words were lost as Jak powered up with the yellow eco. Shiha watched from afar as Jak fired yellow eco into the mutated lurker's face. As the lurker succumbed to the shots, it fell into the lava and magma.

Said lava and magma surged up like a wave and Jak and Daxter came rushing back towards her. Shiha ran to the edge and threw out the long end of her rod. As if he knew exactly what she meant to do, Jak jumped onto the rod and catapulted himself onto one of the obsidian platforms.

Gasping, Shiha said, "You two okay?"

Jak gave her a thumbs up and Daxter groaned. "We've been better..." The ottsel muttered from his spot on Jak's shoulder.

Shiha grinned at them for a moment before she said, "We've still got some work ahead of us before we're ready to head out." As if to emphasis her point, the lurker rose up from the lava again, its hands smashing down onto the ground around it.

Beside her, Jak and Daxter groaned. Shiha snickered quietly to herself because of course that was the one of the only ways to ever hear Jak make a sound. Twirling her rod, she readied herself as the lurker began throwing more rocks towards them, in a repeat of the previous round.

They also repeated their own process of jumping around and knocking the rocks around. Jak, doing the former, was quick and nimble enough that he didn't get even a slightest evidence of a burn. Shiha, on the other hand, had burns on her arms and legs as small chunks of rocks glanced off of her.

Deciding to ignore the burns for now, Shiha slammed a rock down into the platform she stood on and grimaced as it rocked. On the bright side, the blue eco that Jak needed to reform the platforms to the mutant lurker.

Jak landed next to her and grabbed the blue eco. He sparked a bright blue and snapped a hand forward and the platforms raised back up from the magma. Unfortunately, a few of the platforms did not rise up which meant Jak had less land to run on. Daxter was wailing about that as the duo rushed forward towards the yellow eco near the end of the platform.

Shiha let out a breath as she twirled her rod again. "Alright, Jak!" She yelled across the gap. "Shoot it up!!"

She didn't hear either of their responses as Jak did just that. Just like the previous round, the mutant lurker took several blasts to the face and staggered away. Shiha let out the breath she was holding as it fell into the magma once more. Another boulder surged up from the magma and stormed across the platforms.

Daxter was yelling on the top on his lungs as the two of them ran back away from the boulder. Jak landed next to Shiha while Daxter continued yowling on the top of his lungs. "Daxter, you need to breath." Shiha deadpanned as the lurker popped out of the magma once more.

"Let me panic, okay?!" Daxter groaned as he dug his clawed fingers into Jak's metal pauldron. "I hate this sooo much, when are we going to be done?!"

Looking back up, Shiha said, "Well, we might be done soon." Kicking her rod back up and held it against her shoulder and continued. "Let's try this again!" She swung it and smashed the rock away from her head.

Jak bounced around the obsidian platforms away from her. As like the previous two rounds, the lurker threw rocks at them. Unlike before, they were much larger and heavier. More than once Shiha found herself back to back with Jak as they dodged around the platforms.

Shiha let out a breath and clenched her hands tightly on her staff. "Okay, we should be done soon. Hopefully."

"I was ready to be done yesterday!" Daxter squawked as he and Jak pulled away to another platform. Shiha went in the opposite direction and stopped at the final of the five platforms. She kneeled down with one hand on her knee and the other tight around her rod.

Okay...Okay, she really needed to be careful. All it would take is one wrong step and she could be falling into that magma and lava. Shiha looked up from where she was kneeling and spotted Jak just in time to see him grabbing a ball of blue eco. The valley rumbled as the precursor platforms pulled back out of the magma once more.

Were they finally done, she wondered as Jak raced across the precursor platforms. It'd felt like they'd spent hours fighting already. She sighed deeply and tossed her rod up against her shoulder. Okay, what did she have to do now?

...Nothing, she decided as she watched Jak unleash yellow eco of fury on the mutant lurker. Not much she could do to help there but at least she could fix everyone's injuries after the battle was over. Which, she noted as the mutant lurker started whirling back, looking pained.

Shiha stood up as the lurker fell again. She watched the lava and magma bubble, hands taunt on her rod as she waited and waited for it to come back up. As she waited, Jak and Daxter ran back to her, the former clutching a power cell in his hands.

"How'd you get that?" She asked, briefly glancing at him before glaring back at where the lurker lay.

Tucking it away, Jak signed. ^It fell from a packet on the lurker's belt--I think we've beat it.^ He glanced over his shoulder to look at the same place Shiha was.

Daxter huffed. "We better have beat it!! I'm burning up here: It is _way_ too hot here!" He wiggled his body as if to emphasis this and then tugged on his bandanna.

Shiha felt herself smile slightly and she shook her head. "I don't think it's getting back up. Want to go check out what's ahead?" Hopefully it was the path to the Red Sage's home. They'd have a long walk if it was.

Jak gave her a thumbs up and led her to some new platforms that had popped up out of the lava and magma. The trio crossed them and Shiha took one moment to look at the lurker with a little bit of sorrow--how could she not?--but moved on. She might not care for the chaos lurkers tended to cause for whatever reason but she wasn’t fond of watching them die.

They stopped at what seemed to be yet another precursor teleporter pad. Shiha tapped her rod against the pad and it hummed to life. Hrm--that was...strange. Did precursor stuff just turn other precursor stuff on? She'd have to put that on her list to ask Keira about later.

"What're we supposed to do now?" Daxter complained.

Shiha turned back to the platforms they'd crossed. "I'll head back and let Keira know what's up. She can send the zoomer and... Well, you two can head to the Red Sage's place and get that warp ring on."

The ottsel made a face. "Ugh, more flying?" He asked with a sigh as he flopped over onto the pauldron.

Laughing, Shiha said, "I'd do it, but I don't know how to fly a zoomer. I don't think we want to blow up the only zoomer we've got."

^We don't want you to die, either.^ Jak signed.

Shiha smiled fondly at him. "Yeah, sure. Anyway, I'll head back--it shouldn't take too long." She waved goodbye to them and jogged away from the duo.

Ack, she thought as she passed back over the lava-magma, she really didn't like this at all. Why was there so much of this stuff here anyway? It shouldn't be possible for it to be just out in the open like this: Maybe if it was deeper into a cone....But it wasn't.

With a shake of her head, she jumped up to the path back down to the blue eco machine. Keira was leaning against the side of the controls, saying something to her grandfather. Samos looked just as unamused as always as he grumbled back.

"Keira!" Shiha called out, waving a hand excitedly.

She looked up, surprised by Shiha's arrival. Shiha in turn almost tripped over the last jump but caught herself on the edge and wiggled her feet onto the ground. "Eheh..." She grinned at Keira, feeling glad to be doing something for once. "So we need the zoomer."

Keira blinked. "Did something happen with the lurker...?"

Oh, right. "We beat it, but there's another passage we need to pass," Shiha said, "Sooo...can we take care of that?" She grinned sheepishly at Keira.

"What about all your burns?" Keira glanced over the burns and scorches on Shiha.

While Shiha was flattered about the concern, Shiha shook her head. "I can heal while we wait for Jak and Daxter to turn the other ring on. Can we...go?" She gestured vaguely to where she knew the other pad the zoomer was resting on was.

Keira opened her mouth and then closed it. "Fine." She sighed. Shiha blinked rapidly as Keira sped off, feeling baffled. What had she said to upset the other girl?

She glanced at Samos who just shrugged and followed after his granddaughter. Why were other people so confusing? Shiha sighed to herself and jogged after the familial duo.

Along the way, she waved goodbye to some of the villagers they'd made friends with: Said villagers only had time to wave back themselves as they went about trying to figure out what exactly was going on. Rowen was busy scolding Lori about something--probably gambling, as Mar passed Shiha, gobbing at the volcano.

_Yeah, look you washed up hero. You look and see what Jak and Daxter did that you couldn't._

Shiha silently preened with pride for her two friends as she continued into the passage towards the precursor pad. The way there was...wet as the water misted up from the waves crashing against the rocks. It was better, though, than the unbearable heat of the volcano valley.

Keira and Samos were arguing again when she caught up to them. Sighing, Shiha turned her attention from them to the empty pad. Well, either they were arguing about the missing zoomer or they were continuing their argument from earlier. Shiha was leaning towards the latter, in this case.

Eventually, the duo stopped arguing and Keira turned around, rubbing her temples. "Okay, the zoomer has been sent over. Now we just need to wait at the Blue Sage's hut until--"

They all jolted as Keira's radio turned on. "--eira!!!!" Daxter's tinny voice shrieked through the radio. "We got a problem!!"

"What problem??" Keira asked, as she grabbed her radio. Shiha made a face at it, wondering what could've happened in such a short time....and also why they hadn't just used the radio earlier.

Daxter shrieked and said, "We've got flying lurkers here, and they seem pretty eager to get to the end of the passage...you know, where we need to go?!" There was the sounds of explosions on the other side of the radio.

Shiha frowned and leaned forward. "Well, if they're eager to get there, we should probably stop them? Also, if they're working with that mutant lurker, they're probably going to do some damage." They might've even been trying to get to Rock Village...

"Ugh, fine! You hear them, Jak, let's beat them to the end!" Daxter yelled just as the radio went dead. Shiha and Keira both stared at it for a long while before they glanced at each other and sighed as one.

Why was it that whenever crazy things happened, it was when she wasn't there to see them? Granted, she was happier not being accosted by lurkers and other such enemies, but he still didn't like being out of the loop.

Keira passed her as she headed towards the hut. Shiha trailed after as Keira rubbed her temples, looking frustrated. As much as she wanted to comfort the other teen, she wasn't sure how to start. She could hardly blame Keira for being frustrated, regardless of whether it was because Shiha asked about the teleport pad or because of her argument with Samos.

Shiha felt like she should ask but she sighed and looked away. In her limited experience of the past couple years, people didn't tend to like being bothered while they're frustrated. She stumbled out of her thoughts as she also stumbled over the wooden boards of the path to the Blue Sage's hut.

Looking around the hut, Shiha decided to sit on the rickety chair by the warp ring. Keira went back to tinkering with the small projects she had brought with her. Behind them, Samos clunked into the hut with a grumble.

"Honestly, Keira, why must you argue this point?" Samos asked, sounding almost as frustrated as Keira had looked earlier.

The teenage girl slammed her projects down. "I thought," She said, "We were done with that conversation."

Samos frowned with practically his entire face. "We'll still continue this conversation until there's a resolution." The sage crossed his arms, nearly knocking his staff into Shiha's face.

She dodged under it and looked to Keira as the other teenager scowled down at her project. "The resolution is that nothing I say can change your behavior so I don't see the point of continuing it." Keira huffed as she went back with her work.

It seemed the Green Sage wasn't all that keen to give in as he opened his mouth to...argue about arguing, apparently. Before a sound could leave him, however, the warp ring jingled lightly and Daxter landed in front of them.

"Hey, girls~!" Daxter puffed out his chest proudly. "We're back!"

Shiha stifled her laugh and looked over at Keira. She looked like she had just been blessed by the precursors themselves. "Hey, Dax," Shiha said, "Nice timing."

Daxter gave her a weird look before pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Anyway, the Red Sage's place is trashed too. Think whatever got the Blue Sage got them too?" The ottsel turned around as he spoke.

"Probably." Shiha shrugged as she knelt down and offered her shoulder for Daxter to climb on. He gave her a sour look before he climbed up onto her shoulder. She shot him a grin before turning to Keira.

She didn't have to say anything as Keira said, "Well, let's keep going." Passing Shiha, Keira jumped through the ring, projects in tow.

Exchanging looks with Daxter, Shiha shrugged at him as Samos passed them and jumped into the ring as well. She approached the ring and glanced over her shoulder just as she and Daxter jumped through. Her eyes met those of Mar's, who was heaving.

Oops. Wonder what he wanted, she thought as she landed in the Red Sage's hut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've got 4-6 chapters left of this story! and we're almost novel length on top of that, wow.

**Author's Note:**

> chose sigurd as the name for jak's uncle out of irony for Sig.


End file.
